Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and Sanju Samson (Agency Image)
Earlier, Nitish Reddy’s 3/24 helped restrict Afghanistan to 159/8. India won by seven wickets for the second successive game at the same venue, taking a 2-0 lead with one match remaining.
he responded emphatically in the second game, smashing 57 off just 22 deliveries as India beat Afghanistan by seven wickets to take an unassailable 2-0 lead While Samson managed only 10 off eight balls in the series opener. You are seeing a 15-year-old boy who has come after scoring 700-800 runs. Samson’s 57 was his first T20I half-century since the T20 World Cup final, where he was named Player of the Tournament.
Those kinds of mindsets don’t work here,” Samson told reporters in the post-match press conference. “As I said before, playing for the Indian team and scoring runs is not an easy thing. After that, they had such a good performance, and he had to come in in some other manner,” said Samson.
Sanju Samson has offered a candid take on the outside noise and his competition with Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s omission from India’s playing XI against Afghanistan, insisting that competition between players cannot come at the expense of the team’s larger objective. Samson and Abhishek Sharma opened in India’s first two T20Is against Afghanistan, leaving Sooryavanshi on the bench despite the teenager having been named Player of the Series in Zimbabwe. “I think they (Sooryavanshi and Abhishek Sharma) are competitors for the outside world, but we are a team, and we are playing for a country. We want to win the game first, and then it comes down to the other individuals. We can’t sulk or be in a negative frame of mind, thinking, ‘Yaar, mujhe nahi mila, usko kyun diya. I was Player of the Tournament before that. Samson’s comments came after a period in which his place in the T20I side had also been under scrutiny. After being named Player of the Tournament at the T20 World Cup, he struggled against Ireland in the first two games and played the first T20I in England before being dropped.