The audition for the T20I by Sanju Samson is starting to resemble a test of high pressure, which he was not able to truly pass. Five games with New Zealand were supposed to secure his footing, but none of the games delivered the sort of iconic innings that do not provoke argument. As India prepares to kick off their ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026 tournament in Mumbai on February 7 versus the United States, time is running out in order to get a final statement performance.
It is that context that causes the evaluation of Aakash Chopra on ESPNcricinfo to have more of a selection alarm than an expert analysis. Chopra did not mean a short-term decline in performance, but rather something much more threatening, a repetitive trend. In the case of elite batters, predictability is the only weakness that is being exploited by the opponent.
According to Chopra, it is not the first time that Samson has fallen into such a trap. In the past 12 months, since the England series, Samson has so often been a victim of the short ball, and has been caught in the in-depth. Against New Zealand, the same was being played out at a slower tempo, which goes to support the same trend that Chopra has termed an eerie trend, which is such a pattern that there is a tendency to know where to strike him.
Going more technical on it, Chopra pointed out the fact that Samson tends to establish too deep into the crease before the ball is released. The bat of Samson closes early with minimal movement of his front foot, which restricts his choices and leaves almost no chance to make a wrong swing. Although he managed to survive once through an outer fringe in Thiruvananthapuram, the problem was not resolved.
Form, technique and selection cannot be separated in T20 cricket. As long as his arrangement is causing Samson to be predictable to fast bowling, the Indian team management has a difficult question to answer, but an imperative question: does his potential payoff justify the risk at a World Cup? The dilemma becomes more acute as the rivalry increases by players who are standing right behind him in the pecking queue.
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