India vs Sri Lanka 2024: It will be challenging for the newly appointed head coach of the Indian cricket team, Gautam Gambhir, to select between Rishabh Pant and Sanju Samson for the three T20 International matches against Sri Lanka starting here from Saturday. Except for Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, who have retired from the shorter format, most of the players of the T20 World Cup winning team have come on Sri Lanka tour and in such a situation, it will not be easy to choose between Pant and Samson as both of them are aggressive wicketkeeper batsmen. . Even though there are two vacancies in the Indian batting order, it will not be easy to field either of them as a batsman. Pant scored 171 runs in the T20 World Cup while Samson did not get a chance to play a single match even though he was a part of the team.
This series between India and Sri Lanka has become important for the Indian team because this is Gambhir’s first series as the head coach while the new captain of the team is Suryakumar Yadav. If we look at Gambhir’s past record, it is certain that his input will be given more importance in team composition. When Pant was out of the team after being injured in a car accident in December 2022, Ishan Kishan, Samson, Jitesh Sharma and Dhruv Jurel were tried as wicketkeeper batsmen. If we look at the figures of Pant and Samson, they look quite similar.
Samson has played 28 T20 International matches so far in which he has scored runs at a strike rate of 133. Out of these, he has played 27 matches after 2020 whereas he had made his debut in this format in 2015. He himself admitted that his average of 21.14 was not in line with his ability. On the other hand, Pant has played 74 T20 International matches so far in which he has scored runs at a strike rate of 127. His average is 22.70.
Which of these two to select will largely depend on the thinking of the team management. As far as Rohit Sharma is concerned, he had full faith in Pant and this was the reason why there was no discussion about Samson despite being a part of the team during the T20 World Cup.