KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant, and Dhruv Jurel. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has selected three wicketkeepers for India’s upcoming ODI series against South Africa. All of them are quality players. But how often does a Team India pick three keepers? And even when they have, somehow, Sanju Samson still hasn’t made the team.
In Pant’s absence, Samson was expected to be India’s backup keeper in ODIs. But when picking the squad for Australia, Dhruv Jurel got the nod. When an extra spot opened up due to injuries to Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer, Pant got in, and Jurel continued, but Samson couldn’t.
Sanju Samson, victim of format mixing?
Anil Kumble isn’t exactly pleased with Samson getting the cold shoulder. The former India captain highlighted how the batter from Kerala had scored a hundred in his last ODI, albeit nearly two years ago.
“One name that I would have wanted to see was Sanju Samson as well, because I think in the last ODI that he played a couple of years ago, I know he was not a part of the Australia ODI squad, but Sanju got a hundred,” Kumble said on JioStar.
That wasn’t the interesting bit. Kumble mentioned something that many have been disgruntled about when it comes to selection: mixing formats. He thinks Jurel got into the ODI team because of the India Test and India A exploits. While it’s understandable to reward him for them, Samson shouldn’t be the one to pay for them.
At the moment, Samson’s ahead in the white-ball pecking order. But due to Jurel being part of the Test setup, he has been included, while the former hasn’t. Also, unlike T20Is, Samson usually bats in the top or middle order in ODIs.
“So, I think when you play these three different formats or two formats, you tend to mix up the form and everything else. So that is something that I think one needs to keep in mind when you are picking squads,” he added.
India ODI squad for South Africa series
Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul (c & wk), Rishabh Pant (wk), Tilak Verma, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana
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