In the third T20 against Afghanistan, Abhishek Sharma made a lot of headlines by scoring a century in 30 balls, but in the same series, Sanju Samson also quietly gave his answer. Sanju, who was dropped from the team after consecutive failures on the tour of England and Ireland, scored 117 runs in three matches against Afghanistan, which included two half-centuries. His strike rate was 180.
Gambhir said that keeping Sanju out of England was the most difficult decision of his coaching tenure. He admitted that this decision was not easy considering Sanju’s performance before winning the World Cup. However, Gambhir also said that sometimes the team management has to take decisions based on the current form of the players.
According to Gambhir, in T20 cricket, only runs or wickets are not considered, but the impact the player and the team are making is more important.
For this reason, he considered it a big achievement for the team to complete 100 runs in the powerplay more than Abhishek’s 100 runs. During his coaching tenure, India scored 100 runs in the powerplay for the first time. Gambhir said that the team has to move ahead with this aggressive thinking and now the next target is to score 300 runs.
Why trust the World Cup team?
Gambhir made one more thing clear in Sanju’s case. He said that the team management was clear from the beginning about going back to the combination of the World Cup winning team.
Gambhir said that a player does not become a bad player just because he fails in two-three matches or one-two series. India remained invincible from one World Cup to the next and won the World Cup. In such a situation, trust in that team or its players cannot be lost after just two-three failures.
When Sanju came, Vaibhav had to wait.
Sanju’s return in the Afghanistan series had a direct impact on 15 year old Vaibhav Suryavanshi. Vaibhav had to be out of the playing eleven. Gambhir called this not a shock for Vaibhav, but a part of the wait. He said that the team management is fully aware of Vaibhav’s talent and what he can do. But the player who has been doing well continuously for about two years will be ahead of the player who has just joined the team.
His message was clear – whether the player is 15 years old or 30 years old, if you have to wait to get a chance, then you have to wait. This is the competition in Indian cricket and the presence of such talent in the team’s dressing room only makes the team stronger.