India squad for Champions Trophy: Pant continues to bench Samson, Jaiswal could get maiden ODI cap
All three haven’t played a lot of 50-over cricket. Jaiswal hasn’t played a List A match since November 2022; Samson’s last ODI came in December 2023, and Pant has played just one ODI in the last 25 months.
For nearly a decade now, Sanju Samson has suffered because of Rishabh Pant. Time and again, when a team for any white-ball series is announced, Pant always pips Samson. However, in the last couple of years, due to Pant’s accident and Samson finally coming of age, the batter for Kerala has started to get his chances and prove his worth. Well, the clock has turned back once again. The India cricket team has named their squad for the ICC Champions Trophy, and Samson is nowhere to be found while Pant finds a spot.
This time around, Samson isn’t even part of the reserves. With the batting lineup stacked, the Indian management has decided to go with two bowlers (Varun Chakaravarthy, Avesh Khan) and one all-rounder (Nitish Kumar Yadav). But weirdly enough, it wasn’t Samson wasn’t just battling with Pant.
Sanju Samson & Rishabh Pant: ODI stats comparison
Innings | Runs | Average | Strike Rate | 100s | 50s | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sanju Samson | 14 | 510 | 56.66 | 99.60 | 1 | 3 |
Rishabh Pant | 27 | 871 | 33.50 | 106.21 | 1 | 5 |
Yashasvi Jaiswal has also been picked in Team India’s squad for the ICC Champions Trophy. The southpaw who hasn’t made his ODI debut yet has been picked as the backup opener in case one of Rohit Sharma or Shubman Gill aren’t able to continue. But that isn’t just what Jaiswal did. You see, Samson is an flexible batter.
We’ve seen him open the batting in T20Is and done exceedingly well. If given the opportunity, he could have picked in the team despite Pant making the squad due to him being a southpaw aggressor who can flip the game on it’s head. But since such an talent batter in Jaiswal is present who averages nearly 54 and also has an double hundred in List A, Samson has to miss out.
In fairness, Samson has himself to blame himself. We have no update from him or the Kerala Cricket Association (KCA) that he isn’t injured yet, he wasn’t playing in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, the only List A tournament scheduled before the ICC Champions Trophy.
Maybe things could have been different had he featured in the 50-over tournament. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) probed into why Samson didn’t play and perhaps ruled him at fault for the omission and didn’t include him in the squad for the ICC Champions Trophy.
Yashasvi Jaiswal’s List A record
Matches | Runs | Average | Strike Rate |
100s | 50s | Highest Score |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
32 | 1511 | 53.96 | 86.19 | 5 | 7 | 203 |
India squad for ICC Champions Trophy 2025
Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant (wk), Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh
Travelling Reserves: Varun Chakaravarthy, Avesh Khan, Nitish Kumar Reddy
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