The silken touch was seen in Sanju Samson’s batting in first T20I against Bangladesh: Aakash Chopra

The silken touch was seen in Sanju Samson’s batting in first T20I against Bangladesh: Aakash Chopra. (Source – Twitter/X)

Other than there being anticipation on how the youngsters would fare which included the likes of debuts handed to Mayank Yadav and Nitish Kumar Reddy, a significant amount of eagerness was placed on the fact which was in relation to how Sanju Samson would perform as an opener. Ahead of the first T20I against Bangladesh, Samson had opened the innings for India in only five out of the 27 innings he had featured in the shortest format.

The wicketkeeper-batter ended up scoring a quickfire 29 off 19 deliveries, which provided India the requisite platform to ease their way through the run-chase.

Meanwhile, former Indian cricketer, Aakash Chopra, in a recent discussion, had his emphasis laid on Samson as well as Gambhir’s statement on the wicketkeeper-batter which he had made in 2020 post a young Samson being awarded the Player of the Match for his 32-ball 74-run blitz against the Chennai Super Kings coupled with two catches and as many stumping dismissals.

“You need to talk about Sanju Samson. Abhishek Sharma was playing amazingly well until he was there but he got run-out. But how well did Sanju play! Gautam Gambhir said long back that if Sanju Samson doesn’t play for India, it’s India’s loss. He was made to open,” stated Chopra, in a video he released on his official YouTube channel.

Chopra also elaborated on the exquisiteness of all six of Samson’s boundaries, something he’s been associated with ever since he burst onto the domestic and international scene.  

“The silken touch was seen. He wasn’t hitting the ball hard. It seemed like he didn’t want to hurt the ball, and he was hitting one four after another. When everyone was hitting, he also hit, but by caressing the ball. You were getting hit, you were bleeding, but you were not feeling the pain,” mentioned Chopra.

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Sanju should score few more runs, otherwise, he’d be dropped: Chopra

Chopra further went on to opine that Samson should be trying to capitalize on his starts and go on to amass a bigger score than he did on Sunday. He also noted that that would be the solution to him establishing himself as a regular in the 20-over squad.

“He is good. He scored 29 runs. My only thing was that since he had reached here, he should go slightly further ahead. He should score a few more runs because, otherwise, they would drop him. He keeps moving in and out (of the side), and up and down (the batting order),” concluded Chopra.

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Despite the various attributes Samson possesses in his batting, he has had a tendency of throwing away his wicket in the past. Having scored only a couple of fifties in the 27 T20I innings for India up until now, Samson’s aim would be to fuel that particular column come the second and third T20Is which are to follow.