IPL 2024

‘Pura Rajneeti ka khel hai, Harsha Bhai’ – Fans react as Harsha Bhogle says he would like to have Sanju Samson in India’s T20I side

Rajasthan Royals beat Gujarat Titans by 3 wickets on Sunday to go top of the table.

Apr 17, 2023 1:53 pm

Sanju Samson had gotten starts so far in the IPL 2023. The Kerala born player was not able to convert his starts into big ones. But in the game against Gujarat Titans, he showed his mettle and made a cracking 60 off 32 balls with three fours and six sixes. This innings under pressure helped Rajasthan Royals to chase down GT’s score of 177-7. RR were reeling at 55-4 and his arrival to crease made all the difference.

Harsha Bhogle made an interesting comment on Sanju Samson after RR beat GT by three wickets.

Bhogle tweeted: “I would play Sanju Samson in the Indian T20 team every day.”

Samson has been in and out of the Indian team. But the Men in Blue have not given him a consistent run. In the ODI series against Australia that was played before the IPL, fans accused Indian team management of not backing Samson like they did with Suryakumar Yadav.

RR made to the final of the 2022 IPL where they lost in Ahmedabad to Gujarat Titans. The men from the Pink City will look to go all the way and clinch their second IPL title since 2008. The RR bowlers and players have spoken very highly of Samson’s captaincy. KM Asif had said that Samson is a bowler’s captain, and it has been a very easy dynamic with him.

“When you play quality opponents on a quality wicket, you get such games. Very happy to compete in such a game and come out on top. It was important to rotate our bowlers, they were playing some quality cricket and we had to respect that. The whole team came up well today and we could restrict them to around 170. The start we had, it shows how good a wicket this was,” Samson said after the match against GT.

“But today Zampa coming was a way to match up with the opponents. He was the match-up for Miller and almost got the wicket, but the catch was dropped. (On Hetmyer) He doesn’t like easy situations, we like putting him in such situations because he usually wins us games from such situations,” Samson added.

Let us take a look at the reactions on Twitter with regards to Harsha Bhogle’s tweet on Sanju Samson:

There's always a pattern about @IamSanjuSamson innings.
Largely he gets out at a critical juncture, even today he got out when @rajasthanroyals needed 64 of 30, it took special effort from @SHetmyer to cross the line. He's a rare talent, but dependability is a ❓

— Aashish P Pawar (@iamAashish1913) April 16, 2023

I think he still needs to maintain his composure. After he hit that 6,4 i had that intuition that he might throw his wicket now, which actually happened. He has to take the game deep so that things are not left in the balance after his departure.

— Akshay (Modi ka Parivar) (@misled_master) April 17, 2023

I would in fact pick him in the ODIs too. If you have seen, he always maintains a good strike rate in odis from beginning without taking any risks. He plays spin and pace equally well, can bat anywhere fron opening to middle order to lower middle order.

— Deepak Divakaran (@Deepu_Deepak) April 17, 2023

Day in and day out so many good performances and yet somehow the selectors ignore him at the end moments. He's finally got an annual contract, let's see if that changes anything for him. He's too good to not be playing for India.

— Rohan Mali (@ro21_9) April 16, 2023

There are 2 supremely talented players who under pressure situation would take it upon themselves 1) KL – play slow and take it deep 2) Sanju Samson – who goes after it.
Now the conundrum is which is better. I would go for Samson any day.

— CricFan (@DeepakSett) April 16, 2023

Yes i agree with you. Also i feel over the last few years he has matured a lot( as a batsman). Now he can play slow if needed and then accelerate after getting his eyes in( like today). Not playing any rash shots. The way he took on Rashid today was awesome 👌👌👍👍

— BeFairInLife (@BeFairInLife) April 16, 2023

Truly said,Hope our Selectors and Team Management realise the same very Soon .Harsha, apart from his playing ability,his on and off field behaviour is also being always heartining.@BCCI @ImRo45 @CricCrazyJohns .

— Narayan Mahadevan (@tmnarayan) April 16, 2023

Two players who should be taken into serious consideration for T20Is & completely backed with all heart are Sanju Samson & Ravi Bishnoi. I still find it hard to believe that BCCI knowing about their talent, they still keep overlooking at both of them. It's their loss I would say.

— Rahul Sharma (@CricFnatic) April 16, 2023

Very well said. He deserves a place in the team more than all the youngsters that have been given opportunities…

— Krishna (@ChimmaCheekati) April 17, 2023