Being Sanju Samson these days is difficult, particularly since he could lose his place in the Indian starting lineup as the squad looks for the best combination.
While others were just starting to lumber up, Samson was the first to begin his solo keeping drills with fielding coach T Dilip when the Indian team arrived at the ICC Cricket Academy Arena for their evening net session before the Asia Cup.
In addition to receiving recognition for a full-stretched diving catch made on his right, he was the epitome of concentration. Head coach Gautam Gambhir then approached him gently. The Kerala man was listening carefully, and Gambhir got engrossed in a conversation with him for three minutes. Gambhir appeared to be talking more about the batting than his keeping drills, though.
When Jitesh Sharma walked out of the clubhouse, his confident steps said a lot, if body language is any guide. After the batting drills started, the RCB keeper appeared at ease and took turns batting with Shivam Dube, Tilak Verma, and Hardik Pandya, with middle-order dashers receiving the first opportunity.
The most intriguing aspect was that Samson was back in the ground in his batting gear while the quartet batted, but he eventually left the fray in silence and was spotted sitting behind a palm tree next to the clubhouse dressing room.
Throughout the entire phase, Samson was not called upon to bat once. Instead, captain Suryakumar Yadav, vice-captain Shubman Gill, and Abhishek Sharma, who also rolled his arm over, took turns to bat not once or twice, but three times.
Subsequently, he approached the nets once more, and once it became evident that he would not bat, he sat down on the ice box. Dube bowled his medium pacers after batting for a bit and then padded up to bat once more and Samson remained seated on that ice box.
When everyone had finished, Samson finally went into the nets. He missed a half tracker from a net bowler. That was the end of his day.
Rinku Singh was the other individual who didn’t even bother to pad up, which is a clear sign that he is not involved. He later padded up and accepted throwdowns from a non-specialist support staff member as the net session was coming to a finish. It indicated Rinku’s present position in the hierarchy.
It became increasingly clear throughout the training session that Sunil Gavaskar’s suggestion to position Tilak at No. 6 and fit Samson in would not work.
Jitesh Sharma’s role as a finisher would also assist Gambhir in keeping a powerful six-hitter like Shivam Dube in the mix, since his emphasis has been on batting all-rounders and boosting batting depth.
There was some suspense surrounding net sessions during Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s time and occasionally during Rahul Dravid’s time as coach as well, but frequently there were no clues as to how things would turn out in the end.
But with Gambhir, there are no pretences — what you see is exactly what you get. Every minute in the nets reflects his match strategy, and Jitesh wouldn’t be batting for an hour just two days before the opener unless he was firmly in the plans.
