“Had he scored 70s instead of 30s, he might have been in the Indian squad” - Harbhajan Singh on RR skipper Sanju Samson 

Harbhajan Singh is not surprised with Rajasthan Royals (RR) skipper Sanju Samson’s exclusion from the Indian team for the T20I series against South Africa at home. According to Harbhajan, the keeper-batter hasn’t scored enough runs to merit a place in the national squad.

Samson was among the most prominent names to miss out on selection when the BCCI named the Indian squad for the five-match T20I series against South Africa next month. Veteran keeper-batter Dinesh Karthik and all-rounder Hardik Pandya made a comeback into the Indian team on the basis of their impressive IPL 2022 performances.

Samson will get another chance to make his mark in IPL 2022 when Rajasthan take on the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in Qualifier 2 at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Friday. Analyzing the Rajasthan captain’s batting in the ongoing edition, Harbhajan told Sportskeeda:

“Sanju Samson has a lot of potential, but he hasn’t scored as many runs. He has made good 20s and 30s but has then got out due to his carelessness. He has thrown his wicket away too often against both spinners and fast bowlers. Had he scored 70s instead of 30s, he might have been in the Indian squad.”

Samson was a part of the Indian T20I squad that took on Sri Lanka in February this year, scoring 39 and 18 in the two games that he batted in.

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“Jos Buttler didn’t look the best to me in Qualifier 1” - Harbhajan Singh on RR opener

Harbhajan was also slightly critical of RR opener Jos Buttler’s innings in Qualifier 1 against the Gujarat Titans (GT). The former off-spinner opined that although Buttler ended up scoring 89 off 56, his slow batting at the start hurt the IPL team’s momentum. He elaborated:

“Jos Buttler didn’t look the best to me in Qualifier 1 although he did score runs. In the first half of IPL 2022, he played free-flowing knocks. It never looked like he was getting beaten and he played his strokes with authority. In the last match, though, there was a lot of uncertainty in his innings.”

Harbhajan explained:

“He scored 37 in his first 35 balls. If he had gotten out at that point, he would have wasted a lot of deliveries. I don’t think this is the right approach. The 50 in 21 balls that he scored at the end should have come at the start. He thus needs to rethink his batting strategy.”

Buttler is the IPL Orange Cap holder in 2022, having smashed 718 runs in 15 matches at an average of 51.29 and a strike rate of 148.34. The RR opener has three hundreds and four fifties to his credit.