NEW DELHI: It’s not easy being Sanju Samson. He has been forever walking the line in his 10-year-old international career, partly because of team dynamics and mostly because of his unignorable inconsistency. As he has often done in his career when pushed to a corner, he served a reminder on Tuesday night in the second T20I against Afghanistan why it’s difficult to dismiss his potential in T20 cricket.In a matter of seven overs, after the Indian bowlers expectedly restricted Afghanistan to a modest 159/8 on evidently sluggish pitch, Samson buried the ghosts of the Ireland and England tour with 57 off 22 balls in a cold and merciless spell of ball-striking. In doing so, he virtually killed the game, setting the stage for Ishan to ease to an unbeaten 38 off 23 balls for India to canter to a series victory with a seven-wicket win in 14.5 overs.In the first two T20Is, India’s two preferred T20I openers Abhishek Sharma and Samson regained their form after a lull post the victorious T20 World Cup campaign at home in March. Nitish Kumar Reddy bowling three overs for 3/24 would settle a few nerves in the team management which is fretting over zeroing on a seam-bowling allrounder in the white-ball format.With no major T20I assignment, barring the Asian Games later this month, lined up before 2028, this series bore very little significance. Yet, it was a series that could have determined Samson’s international future. This was a banana peel series for him. He couldn’t afford to have slipped here, certainly not when there is an eagerness to give 16-year-old Vaibhav Sooryavanshi a long run. He was done in by his inconsistency in the UK two months ago where he failed to get started in four T20Is he played, forcing the team management to hand Sooryavanshi an international debut.Samson’s poker face and unassuming demanour at the crease, doesn’t give away his destructive ability with the willow in hand. With each of his four sixes and seven boundaries, he went about demolishing Afghanistan’s spin-bowling strength in the Powerplay and dismissing doubts over his capability as a T20 batter in Indian conditions.As Samson played the dominant hand in the 88-run opening partnership in 6.2 overs before Abhishek holed out at deep mid-wicket off Sanju Samson for 39 off 19, the duo reminded the world of the treachery they could inflict on bowling attacks up front in the innings.The pitch here doesn’t resemble the hard and flat concrete-like decks India played in India during the T20 World Cup. This one is tired after hosting incessant cricket for nearly a year. Afghanistan’s spin attack of Mohammed Nabi, Rashid Khan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Noor Ahmad have fetched premium value in T20 leagues around the globe with their unconventional style of bowling. Afghanistan, trailing in the three-match series, didn’t leave anything to chance and unleashed their most lethal weapons together up front in the second innings. The pitch did show signs of holding up and taking considerable turn in the latter half of the chase, but Samson decided to eliminate the threat before holing out to Rashid centimeters from the long-off boundary.Now that the series is sealed, it will be interesting see if India give Sooryavanshi another hit in the third T20I on Thursday. For now, though, Samson and Abhishek have ensured the teenager will have to push harder to establish himself in this batting lineup.
