Afghanistan in India T20I series, 2024

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Your point has already proven with two domestic failures according to you ( Abhisekh & Rayan Parag) are in top of SM T20 chart. Who said Rashid Khan is a winner ? He may take wickets but it should be in useful case that makes team win trophies. If a players are not responsible for team's failure then who are respondible ? Coach, Support staffs ? Controversial Sreesanth, Jogi Sharma will always be a WC winner and remembered every time then Rohit & co. IPL, franchse T20 wins doesnt matter, it has no degree compared to WCs

Next time, i go to india, i will ask a 15 year old if they know joginder sharma and Rohit sharma. If more people know joginder than Rohit, i will stop watching cricket

I accept your statement. None will remember Joginder Sharma who was part of T20 WC winning team and every one will know Rohit Sharma who will be playing his 9th T20I WC and will still hope to win an ICC event and come out from 2007 shadow

[prasen9]

What 2007 shadow? Rohit was a member of the team winning the 2007 T20I WC. Anyway, not many will remember that. People will remember him for his many good innings.

Horrible XI selected. We went back to T20I failure Sanju Samson. And, don't have a pacer who can bat. The selectors bring in the horrendous Mukesh Kumar.

I would select:

Rohit, Yashasvi, Gill, NTTV, Rinku, Jitesh, Dube, Axar, Sundar, Avesh, Arshdeep

Rest Kuldeep and Kohli. The team will possibly play four #10-11s again and generally waste the slots to train the juniors. Get Dube, NTTV, Yashasvi, Rinku bowl four overs.

If Kohli absolutely needs to come in it should be in place of Gill, who is not as raw as the others wrt international cricket. We must give a fair run to Yashasvi, NTTV, Rinku and Jitesh. Dube if we can.

[PKBasu]

I would pick:
Rohit Sharma (C), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Shubman Gill, Rinku Singh, Sanju Samson (wk), Washington Sundar, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Arshdeep Singh, Avesh Khan as the first XI.

Tilak Verma is the alternative to Rinku, but I think the latter is more reliable as a finisher. Sanju much the better choice than the 30 year old Jitesh. I don't see why Ishan Kishen is being punished (apparently some sort of 'behavioural issue').

[prasen9]

For the #4 position, it is possibly between Gill and NTTV. Gill is a faster bat but scores less. NTTV has scored more but is slower.

Sanju Samson has been a total failure in T20Is. Jitesh needs a fair run. Especially, if we are choosing Washy and Axar, we can gamble a bit and choose the faster batter in Jitesh at the cost of some runs.

[Kumar]

Would actually have Gill open and have Rohit Sharma play at 4 when spinners are operating.

I am actually a fan of Sampson for T20.. I know the numbers indicate otherwise, but I am hoping he takes this opportunity and does well.

And this article from late 2022, author makes a great case for Sanju.

[Atithee]

^^No one can convince prasen9 that Samson belongs to T20. Don’t try.

[prasen9]

Atithee knows me very well. He is 99.9999% correct. There is but one person who can. His name is Sanju Samson. Perform. If he scores brilliantly, then I will be convinced. For example, I was convinced by Prasidh Krishna in ODIs when he bowled well in the first few games and now I have changed my mind based on his hapless bowling in the last few months across formats. Until then (Samson convincing me that he is good), I will believe only what I see. And, not the hype, nor the hope and pray. The matches he played. Awful. I will have to look at the analysis closely but it just seems to pick some characteristics like number of sixes, etc. Seems like not a good analysis but I have not read it carefully either. My point is that a whole player is much more difficult to model and predict (non-linear function) than a simple rule-based analysis on some features (# of sixes/ball, bowling speed, etc.).

I am rooting for a full set of innings to Jitesh. He does not waste balls. Samson gets intimidated and wastes balls and then does not score much in T20Is. I am a big fan of his in ODIs and don't think Ishan or he should be near the T20I team.

[Atithee]

Atithee knows me very well. He is 99.9999% correct. There is but one person who can. His name is Sanju Samson.

I (Atithee) guess I’ll finally have to disclose my true identity and work on exactly what I need to do thanks to Prasen sir.

—Sanju

[prasen9]

Score big and score fast. Simple. Don't drop catches, don't give byes, ...

BTW, we seem to ignore it, but what happened to Ishan Kishan? Mental issues? Poor guy, then.

[Kumar]

The problem for Sanju Sampson is that he is not playing at a set position. Again, do not know his keeping ability (if they are good enough). Will have to see how he does at 5. Forgot that Sanju Sampson is playing for RR. So Jurel may play primarily as impact player. Have to see if he will get that opportunity to impre

Is it possible that team mgmt has finally identified Ishan to be misfit for T20. Again , an opener who cannot handle pace bowlers that well. He also skipped RSA test for personal reasons. Could be some discord .

[indiansportsfan]

Problem with Samson is that he is only good at #4, which limits his usefulness. He has to contend with NTTV and Gill. NTTV in particular makes a strong case since he can also bowl, so allows us to play Jitesh at #6. With Samson at 4 and Jitesh at 6, we don't have any extra bowling option in case someone has an off day. But I am quite positive that Samson will do well if given an opportunity at #4.

[indiansportsfan]

Also interestingly Iyer is also dropped. So looks like selectors figured out futility of all 3 of Rahul, Kishan and Iyer for this format, which is a rather positive development IMO. Hoping for similar steps in future as well. They should have tried out a spinning big hitter/finisher like Tewatia as well instead of Washington. Also Deepak Chahar should have been selected as well instead of Mukesh Kumar, unless there is still some issue with Chahar.

[Atithee]

Aren’t Iyer and Rahul captains of their respective franchises? That’s pretty damning.

[prasen9]

Rahul has performed better than Ishan, Samson, Jitesh, etc. We should not want change for the sake of change. I would give Jitesh a longer run and see if he can average more than the 13-15 he is giving us now. The other two have gotten enough chances and done nothing. We don't need more top-order batters. So, If Samson has to make it, he has to make it as a lower order batter.

[prasen9]

Problem with Samson is that he is only good at #4, which limits his usefulness. He has to contend with NTTV and Gill. NTTV in particular makes a strong case since he can also bowl, so allows us to play Jitesh at #6. With Samson at 4 and Jitesh at 6, we don't have any extra bowling option in case someone has an off day. But I am quite positive that Samson will do well if given an opportunity at #4.

If we are playing four #10-11s, then we will need solid batting from the top 7. Samson scores 20 and Jitesh scores 14. I don't think we can put up a competitive total with the 4 #10s and these two. Samson is also very slow in T20s with a SR of 133. This is his SR in 256 matches and this is his SR in T20Is. KL Rahul SR in T20s is 136 in also over 200 matches. Can someone explain to me how and why it is a better idea to choose the slower player who averages less too significantly?

Yes, I understand we did not win many T20 WCs and Rahul was not good enough. But, replacing a player with worse players ignoring a whole body of work seems like insanity to me. This is the type of hubris where human beings say that they know better and ignore a lot of reality by ignoring several years worth of observations.

We should not consider anyone who does not have a SR of 140 (at worst we can have someone with a SR135 for a maximum of 1-2 players, but they should average highly) among who have a batting role. England and West Indies did not win by choosing slowpokes like Sanju. Somehow we think he will magically be better than what he has been in the last 7 years or so? What is the basis of this improvement? What did he change? Is this borne out by his improving year after year in domestics? Are there others who have been this slow in the past and then magically improved?

Happy to change my mind if someone gives me a coherent argument as to why they think Sanju will be this much better in international cricket than he has been in the domestics ...