'Abhishek Sharma sorted out': Kris Srikkanth believes Sanju Samson will return to India T20I side

'Abhishek Sharma sorted out': Kris Srikkanth believes Sanju Samson will return to India T20I side originally appeared on Cricket News. Add Cricket News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

Kris Srikkanth predicts Sanju Samson's recall after Abhishek Sharma's poor form.

Abhishek fails to cross 20 in six straight T20I innings.

Mayank Yadav impresses on his comeback, earns Srikkanth's praise.

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Kris Srikkanth backs Sanju Samson's return as Abhishek Sharma's slump deepens

Former India captain Krishnamachari Srikkanth has predicted that Sanju Samson will soon find his way back into India's T20I setup, and argued that Abhishek Sharma's extended struggles have left selectors with little choice but to make a difficult call regarding his place in the side.

Abhishek's ongoing rough patch has started attracting attention following yet another disappointing series against Zimbabwe.

The opener has now gone six consecutive T20I innings without crossing the 20-run mark, and across the recent three-match tour, he failed to register even a single double-digit score.

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Since India's triumphant T20 World Cup campaign, he has managed just one half-century, and that has raised questions surrounding his spot at the top of the order. Samson, despite earning the Tournament MVP during the T20 World Cup victory, was left out of the squad for the Zimbabwe series.

It was a decision that underlined just how little tolerance there currently is for extended slumps in form. Abhishek, who was ranked the ICC's number one T20I batter only a few months back, now finds himself under mounting pressure to rediscover the touch that once made him the format's top-ranked player.

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Srikkanth calls for a tough selection decision

Speaking on his YouTube channel, Srikkanth didn't mince words when addressing Abhishek's situation, suggesting that opposition bowlers have effectively figured him out since the World Cup and that selectors now need to make a hard decision about his continued place in the side.

"Abhishek Sharma has been sorted out (by opponents) in international cricket, right from the World Cup," he said.

"I think a tough call has to be taken against him now. I feel Sanju will get his chance again now. He will receive a call back 100%. The selectors will have to take a tough call."

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Is it really time to drop Abhishek?

Numbers offer a more nuanced picture than the raw "six failures in a row" framing suggests. Both batters actually had near-identical IPL seasons; Samson scored 477 runs for Chennai Super Kings, while Abhishek managed 475 runs in 11 innings for Sunrisers Hyderabad, hardly the gulf in form that would justify wildly different treatment on paper.

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Looking specifically at international innings since the T20 World Cup tells a more layered story. Samson played just four innings after the World Cup, scores of 5, 0, 1 and 27, adding up to 33 runs at an average of 8.25, before being axed from the XI.

Abhishek, over the same post-World Cup period, has batted nine times, managing 132 runs at an average of 14.67, including knocks of 49 and 43 against Ireland and England respectively. Those were innings that at least showed signs of rhythm even if he couldn't convert them into fifties.

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So while Abhishek's recent stretch, particularly the Zimbabwe leg, has genuinely been poor, his overall post-World Cup return still sits ahead of Samson's numbers over a comparable period.

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That doesn't necessarily settle Srikkanth's argument in Abhishek's favour; Samson was dropped after a smaller sample size, which itself raises fair questions about consistency in how patience gets extended. But it does complicate the idea that Abhishek has been coasting on reputation while Samson was cut down purely on form.

If anything, the data suggest selectors have applied different thresholds of patience to two players with fairly comparable underlying returns, and that inconsistency, more than either player's individual struggles, is what deserves discussion.

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