People played ‘Jenga’ with Sanju Samson's batting position: India captain Suryakumar Yadav
Suryakumar Yadav said Sanju Samson was told that he may face difficulty with the batting order in the Asia Cup, but he would be expected to make an impact like always.
Suryakumar Yadav said Sanju Samson was told that he may face difficulty with the batting order in the Asia Cup, but he would be expected to make an impact like always.
Suryakumar Yadav said Sanju Samson was told that he may face difficulty with the batting order in the Asia Cup, but he would be expected to make an impact like always.
India's Asia Cup-winning captain Suryakumar Yadav has opened up about the change in Sanju Samson's batting position and the impact he made down the order.
In an interview with journalist Vimal Kumar on his YouTube channel, Yadav said he was never in doubt about Sanju's importance to the team even after Shubman Gill's inclusion as an opener and the arrival of Jitesh Sharma as a wicketkeeper-batter.
"Everyone was thinking, now that Shubman is in the team and Jitesh is available, they started placing and replacing bricks like it works in the Jenga game. They thought so if Sanju cannot open, where is he going to fit in," Yadav said.
(Jenga is a skill game in which players take turns removing wooden blocks from a tower and placing them on top. The game ends when the tower, which keeps becoming unstable, collapses)
Though there were speculations that Sanju might not play in the Asia Cup as he is not used to performing at his best outside the top-3, Yadav said head coach Gautam Gambhir had a plan.
"It never crossed my mind that Sanju won't play," Yadav said.
"In the first practice session, I and Gauti bhai were standing behind the nets and discussing. He said, 'he's (Sanju) done so well for India in the last 10-15 T20s', so we can only tell him that there maybe some difficulties with the batting order, but the impact must remain the same as it has been till now. So we explained it to him that earlier you played 30-35 balls and made 70 runs. Now we may get 20-25 balls or 10 balls or sometimes no chance to bat at all, but try to have an impact for the team."
Sanju did not bat in the first two matches, against the UAE and Pakistan, which India won comfortably chasing. He was promoted to No 3 against Oman, and he top-scored with 56. But Sanju returned to No 5 against Pakistan in Super 4s stage and was relegated to No 8 in the win over Bangladesh. Sanju made 39 at No 5 against Sri Lanka and got a major break in the final against Pakistan when India were 20/3. Sanju came in to bat at No 5 in the title match and held a match-saving 57-run partnership with Tilak Varma before being dismissed for 24.