Former Indian batter Sanjay Manjrekar has asked the team’s think tank not to repeat blunders after Sanju Samson’s brilliant knock against the West Indies at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata, on Sunday. Samson scored a match-winning knock of 97 runs off just 50 balls in the run chase of 196.
Manjrekar recalled that Shubman Gill was added to the team’s T20I team after he was in stellar form in Test cricket. Gill scored 754 runs in five Test matches against England and he was asked to open the innings in the Asia Cup, with the management pushing Samson down the order.
Samson could not grab his opportunity in the middle order and then managed only 46 runs in five matches while opening the innings against New Zealand.
“Sanju Samson came to the fore. Now, I have said this before as well, this is a guy who has only recently got 3 T20I hundreds in five games, but to accommodate Shubman Gill after his brilliant Test form, Samson was pushed down the order, and Gill was made to open. Now these kind of blunders cannot happen. You cannot repeat these blunders, because it has taken a while for Samson to find that spot,” Sanjay Manjrekar said in a post on his Instagram account.
“The thing about Sanju Samson, which is different from Ishan Kishan, Abhishek Sharma, or Tilak Varma, is that a lot of the young batters that are coming through are trying to force the T20 big game into their game. Sanju Samson was already a force as a young player, he always had this talent and still has that big hitting ability to good balls and playing normal shots,” he added.
Manjrekar admitted he was worried at the halfway stage when the West Indies were able to post a fighting score of 195 runs on the board.
“What a game. Bit of nervousness, tension. It seemed like we were already in the semis and finals, such was the atmosphere around the game, and once the West Indies got 190 (195), it became even more intense. I must confess, at the halfway stage, I was worried, because Indian batting has not been top notch. I thought this was going to be a real tester for India,” Sanjay Manjrekar said.
India will take on England in the second semifinal at the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai, on Thursday.
