The former top-order batter of the Indian side, Sanjay Manjrekar, has praised the wicket-keeper batter of the current team, Sanjay Samson, for the latter’s aggressive batting ahead of the upcoming eight white-ball encounter at home against England, which will be followed by the Champions Trophy 2025, scheduled to begin on January 22 at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata.
Sanju Samson didn’t enjoy a fine start to the T20I and ODI format of the game as he kept on struggling to find consistency, which didn’t work in his favor. But the new head coach of the blue brigade, Gautam Gambhir, shouldered so much belief in the batter, and the results started to come.
The wicket-keeper batter was the leading run-getter in the home three-match T20I series against Bangladesh with the help of 160 runs in three innings at an average of 50 and a strike rate of 205.47, shouldering on the best score of 111 at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad.
Sanju Samson is to be picked as the reserved wicket-keeper for Champions Trophy 2025 by Sanjay Manjrekar
Sanju Samson followed the same rich form during the away four-match T20I series against South Africa to finish as the second-highest run-getter with 216 runs in four innings at an average of 72 and a strike rate of nearly 195, recording a couple of centuries at the best score of unbeaten 109-run knock.
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All of these resulted in the batter finishing the previous year with 436 T20I runs in 12 innings at an average of 43.60 and a strike rate of 180.17, shouldering on three centuries and one half-century at the best score of 111. Overall, he has grabbed 810 runs in the shortest format for the Blue Brigade in 33 innings at an average of just below 28 and a strike rate of 155.17.
Sanju Samson has been able to crack the ODI format with 46 runs in his lone inning in 2021, followed by 284 runs in nine innings during 2022 at an average of 71 and a strike rate of 105.58, shouldering on a couple of fifties at the best score of unbeaten 84 runs. In 2023, the right-handed batter was part of the away South Africa series, and a maiden ODI century pushed him to collect 180 runs in four innings at an average of 45 and a strike rate of 91.37.
The Kerala batter, undoubtedly, will be part of the upcoming five-match series at home against England, but the question is if he could make it to the 15-member squad for the three ODIs as a preparation for the Champions Trophy. The 30-year-old has 3487 List A runs in 119 innings at an average of 33.85 and a strike rate of around 90 with the help of three centuries and 19 half-centuries at the best score of unbeaten 212 runs.
Sanjay Manjrekar lauded the maturity and self-confidence of the batter as he reckoned that the wicket-keeper batter took a while before developing.
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“Self-confidence, slight maturity, and he is valuing his wicket a little more. He is playing long innings, and not just one, but repeatedly. Some people blossom a little late, and Sanju Samson is like that.” Manjrekar expressed this during a recent conversation with Star Sports.
“I am a big fan of him now. It seemed earlier that he was batting well, but where were the runs? Now the batting is anyway mighty, even the runs are there.” The Mumbai-born addressed.
Manjrekar backed Samson over Rishabh Pant to be the reserve wicket-keeper for the ICC event, where India starts the campaign on February 20 in Dubai against Bangladesh.