The Indian T20 team for years has been outdated, they’ve often played three or four anchor batters in their team. This has lead at times to their lower order being untested and made them struggle in the recent world cup. Where early wickets set them into panic mode and twice they tried to just make a score instead of risking it for a bigger one. This lead to two relatively easy chases for New Zealand and Pakistan.
Sanju Samson is not your usual Indian top order T20 batter, he doesn’t take his time to get in, he attacks in both the middle overs and against spin. And that is exactly why he should be playing for India.
In his last 4 seasons of the IPL Samson has averaged 32.65 and scored at 146.55. the average isn’t impressive, with most of the Indian top order having better averages. However since 2019 he is in the top 15 for IPL run scorers.
Looking at the top run scorers we can see how different Samson is, only Buttler has scored quicker while only three batters are dismissed quicker. all T20 teams need players who can start quickly and Samson is capable of that. More importantly KL Rahul during this period has been a superb anchor batter. With a batter like him having quicker starters is essential.
One thing that T20 has shown is that teams often don’t risk enough when batting first, they stack their lower order with aggressive batters and then give them three or four balls to bat. A great example of this was England in the World Cup SF, they had a weaker bowling line up and so should have been targeting 175+. However after 15 overs their number’s three and four were still batting. Liam Livingstone hit his sixth ball for six but that was at the end of the 18th over. He had no chance to get set and fell for just 17 of 10. Morgan faced just two balls and their specialist number seven Billings didn’t even get to bat. England finished with 166/4, and NZ just waited until the death when their lack of bowling options was brutally taken advantage of.
Having an aggressive top order batter aids the lower order by giving them more balls to be set before they need to hit out.
Samson’s most underrated ability is his quick scoring in the middle overs, as we can see the only batters quicker than him are two very aggressive openers and two of the best lower order strikers in the world. Not only that but Samson is the only number three here which is remarkable as often he has to start his Innings in the middle overs.
The only way to score this quickly in the middle is to attack spin and this where often Indian batters struggle. Only N Rana and Shaw score at the same speed as Samson, and neither are within five runs of his average in the IPL.
Here we can really see the issue with a lot of the Indian line up, they started the world cup with a top five of: KL, Sharma, Kohli, SKY and Pant. None of whom score at over 8 vs spin. This can make it easy for teams with options to strange them with spin. Having a guy like Samson would allow KL and others to play their natural game of rotation and targeting the quicks.
Yesterday he opened for India and by the end of the Powerplay was 24* (17), he would hit 47 of 23 in the middle overs, a RR of 12.26. Only twice before has India had a batter face as many balls as Samson did in the middle overs of a T20I and score quicker.
Samson will annoy Indian fans at times, he will get out early on lots of occasions; but having him in the top three will allow the other top order batters like KL play their natural game of slow and steady. Hopefully India realise he is exactly the kind of aggressive batter they need.
Aptly put together James. I've comprehended it mate.
Thanks a lot for such a fantastic piece.