Sanju Samson will stay in India’s middle order, confirms captain Surya

Captain Suryakumar Yadav has confirmed that Sanju Samson will continue to bat down the order in the T20I series against South Africa starting Tuesday in Cuttack.

"... when he came into the circuit, he batted higher up the order," Suryakumar said about Sanju. "Now, the thing is, other than the openers, I feel everyone has to be very flexible... He was ready to bat at any number."

The captain made it clear that there won't be any drastic changes for the five-match series. "We won't be changing a lot of combinations. We won't be trying too many things because things are going really well. So, we want to stick to the process," Suryakumar said.

Sanju had to give up his opener role and, at times, slip into the lower middle-order since the Asia Cup in September. In the Australia series in October-November, Sanju lost his place to fellow-wicketkeeper batter Jitesh Sharma, who is also part of the current squad.

Sanju's change of role in the India set-up came into effect at the Asia Cup, where India went with Shubman Gill as Abhishek Sharma's opening partner. With captain Suryakumar and Tilak Varma mostly batting at No 3 and No 4 respectively, Sanju had to step down the order. In the Super 4s match against Bangladesh, Sanju slipped further down to No 8.

Sanju has only hit a half-century in T20Is this year. However, Sanju found great success against South Africa when India toured last November. Sanju hit two centuries in South Africa as an opener.