Will frustrated Sanju Samson start playing for Ireland?

A few weeks ago, #JusticeForSamson started trending after Sanju Samson was dropped from the ODI against New Zealand.

In fact, the debate over who should be India’s wicket-keeper batsman in white-ball cricket between Rishabh Pant and Sanju Samson has been raging.

This has been more pronounced owing to Pant’s recent poor form.

At the same time, Pant has been getting many chances while Samson has been repeatedly ignored by the BCCI.

Recently, there has been an unexpected twist in the tale!

Sanju Samson has got an offer from the Ireland cricket team.

Ireland’s cricket president offered Sanju Samson to play international cricket for Ireland’s National Team, and he ensured that Sanju would be the team’s skipper and play all the matches.

“We will let him play all the matches if he is in our national team.”

“He is a very impressive batter and he is one of the rare talent. We provide him an offer to play the matches from our national team.”

“Our team required a skipper and batter like him. If the Indian team is overlooking him then he can join us, we respect him and make him play every match,” said Ireland’s cricket president.

However, Sanju humbly declined the offer.

“First of all, I want to thank Ireland’s cricket president for considering me for this role but I can’t accept his offer.”

“I started my cricketing to play for Indian national cricket team. I don’t want to play for any other nation or can’t even think to play for another nation.”

“I can’t accept this offer and I want to say sorry to Ireland’s cricket president.” said Sanju Samson

Pant vs Samson

Pant’s numbers in T20Is are shockingly disappointing.

Since August 2019, in 42 innings – which is a large sample size – Pant averages 23 at a mediocre strike rate of 128 with two half-centuries.

This year, the team management has also tried him as an opener, but the left-hander failed to deliver on the promise.

Samson, too, earlier had poor returns.

He averaged 11 in 9 T20I innings in 2020 and 2021.

However, the Kerala batter, under Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid, flourished. In 2022, Samson averages 44 at a strike rate of 158 in 5 T20I innings