Rishabh Pant or Sanju Samson – Who should be a regular in the Indian team?
Even since the conclusion of the 2019 World Cup, there have been calls for the inclusion of Sanju Samson into India’s white-ball formats with MS Dhoni taking a break from the sport. The bandwagon for Samson got a boost given Rishabh Pant’s inconsistency, especially in the T20I format. Things went as far as cricket fans in Kerala chanted their local boy Samson’s name when Pant made a mistake during a T20I against West Indies in the last home season.
How Samson earned the nomination –
Experts all over the country gave a push to the inclusion of Samson’s name in the Indian XI as primary wicketkeeper. The reality became true after Sanju Samson smashed a double century in India’s premier List A tournament, the Vijay Hazare Trophy. Samson, featured in the T20I against Sri Lanka at the start of the year bringing an end to his four and half years wait to represent India after his T20I debut.
However, across three T20Is played this year, Samson returned with single-digit scores of 6, 8 and 2. Just before the COVID-19 pandemic, KL Rahul began to play as primary wicketkeeper which kept the Pant-Samson debate. However, the next time India features in a white-ball International, they will be pushed to pick at least one of the two keeping future in mind.
The importance of consistency
Despite his limited success in both ODIs and T20Is thus far, Rishabh Pant should be given the first preference. Unlike the hype around Samson, the 25-year-old hasn’t been a trustworthy name even in his domestic side. Almost after nine seasons in domestic cricket, Samson has got only 3162 runs in FC cricket at an average of 37.62. Samson’s List A numbers are quite poor as he scored just 2324 runs in 82 innings at an average of mere 30.57.
Sanju Samson’s unbeaten double ton last year was his maiden century in the 50-over format. Pant’s List A numbers are more or less the same but his strike rate is 103.03 which is ideal for the role of No.5 and No.6 he is expected to play in the Indian ODI side. When it comes to T20s, Pant leads Samson by a fair margin in both domestic T20s and IPL.
Samson has often suffered a dip in form after initial matches in the IPL. However, in Pant’s case, the charts have always been steady over the last three seasons. It will be a fair thing to back Pant keeping all his performances in mind which brought him to the national team, unlike Samson who is heavily backed by experts and fans but falls behind many of his competitors over consistency.
