Former Indian wicketkeeper-batter Parthiv Patel has commented on Sanju Samson’s series of low scores during the ongoing tour of West Indies and opined that his time may be running out if he continues to struggle with batting and fails to score runs.
Samson has been unable to capitalise on his chances on the Caribbean tour. While he managed to score a fifty in the third ODI, his performance in the T20I series has been disappointing, as he has only registered 19 runs in two matches so far.
India succumbed to a two-wicket loss in the second T20I at the Providence Stadium in Guyana on Sunday, with Sansom scoring only 7 runs before getting dismissed by Akeal Hosein.
“Every time India loses, we look at the negative points. Throughout the white-ball series, there has been talk about the need for batters to bat long and it is something that has been missing so far. Every time Samson is not in the squad, we talk about him, but he has not cashed in on the opportunities he has availed of so far. Probably time is running out for him, maybe yes or maybe no,” Parthiv was quoted as saying by Cricbuzz.
“Samson has been getting a lot of opportunities, to be honest, he is just not making the most of the opportunities that he is getting. There was only one batter who looked comfortable and that was Tilak Varma,” he added.
Tilak Varma, on his maiden international tour, has been Team India’s best player in the T20I series by a distance. Having given an early exhibition of his talent in the series opener, where he scored 39 off 22, Tilak went up a notch as he stitched a composed 51 runs in 41 deliveries.
Praising Tilak for his knock, Parthiv said: “The way Tilak rotated the strike, the way he used the reverse sweep against spinners, the way he scored sixes over covers, through this he showed the range he has.”
India and West Indies will face each other in the third T20I at the same venue on Tuesday.
-IANS
