Gambhir calls for Sanju Samson to bat at No 4 in World Cup

Former Indian cricketer Gautam Gambhir hailed wicketkeeper-batsman Sanju Samson after the latter scored the first ton of the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) season against Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium on Friday.

The Rajasthan Royals star played an unbeaten knock of 102 and smashed India's senior pacer, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, for 24 runs in the 18th over.

As a result, Samson registered his 2nd IPL century but it went in vain as the hosts went on to beat the Royals by 5 wickets with an over to spare, thanks to David Warner's blistering 69 and cameos through the SRH innings.

Following Samson's innings, Gambhir immediately took to Twitter and called him the best wicketkeeper-batsman in the country at the moment and also said that the Kerala star is his pick for India’s number four batsman in the World Cup.

"I normally don’t like to talk about individuals in cricket. But seeing his skills I am glad to note that Sanju Samson is currently the best Wicketkeeper batsman in India. For me he should be batting number 4 in the World Cup @BCCI @rajasthanroyals @IPL @StarSportsIndia," he tweeted.

Meanwhile, the Indian camp has been experimenting the No 4 spot extensively since the second half of last year. Going back to the Sri Lankan tour in July-August in 2017 till the recently-concluded series against Australia, K L Rahul, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik, Ajinkya Rahane, Suresh Raina and most recently Ambati Rayudu were tried at that position but without much success.