Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], February 2 : Former Indian cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar backed wicketkeeper-batter Sanju Samson to be allowed "long patch of failures" because of the impact he can make when he is in form.
Samson's inconsistent run in T20Is continues as after three centuries in five innings across five innings against Bangladesh and South Africa, he has been troubled by the high-quality pace of Jofra Archer, who has dismissed him thrice in this ongoing series. He has scored just 35 runs in four innings at an average of 8.75, with best score of 26.
Speaking in a video by ESPNCricinfo, Manjrekar said that when looking at T20I batting talent, it is important to look at how much impact they can make when they are playing well. He also said that "long patch of failures" are a part of T20I cricket.
"And you see with Sanju Samson, when he plays well, he gets an incredible hundred and puts your team in a winning position. So, such people are allowed failures and maybe a long patch of failures as well because that is the nature of these as a T20 cricketer, where you cannot play yourself, where you have to keep taking those risks that they take, and hopefully there is one innings that just propels him back into form."
"So, with Samson, I think you should just make sure that he gets as many innings as possible purely because when he gets into form and plays well, he makes it all worth it. If that was another guy who was failing in this fashion and when he got into form just got you 40 or 50, then maybe you would offer him a shorter rope. But I will have a lot of patience with this current version of Sanju Samson," he added.
The fifth and final T20I of the series will take place at Mumbai's Wankhede Stadium on Sunday. India has won the series 2-1.
Squads:
England Squad: Philip Salt(w), Ben Duckett, Jos Buttler(c), Harry Brook, Liam Livingstone, Jacob Bethell, Brydon Carse, Jamie Overton, Jofra Archer, Adil Rashid, Saqib Mahmood, Jamie Smith, Mark Wood, Gus Atkinson, Rehan Ahmed
India Squad: Sanju Samson(w), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav(c), Rinku Singh, Shivam Dube, Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Ravi Bishnoi, Varun Chakravarthy, Harshit Rana, Dhruv Jurel, Washington Sundar, Ramandeep Singh, Mohammed Shami.