Asked on ESPNcricinfo’s T20 Time Out what he felt watching Samson fail to carry on, Bishop said, “That Sanju is wasting good form and good opportunity to score runs to press for an international recall, to lead his team when Jos Buttler doesn’t score. It’s not that Sanju’s out of form. But that’s a match-up with Wanindu Hasaranga and him, and he should have known better. He got out of the blocks quite nicely.
“I’m a Sanju Samson fan, been that way for years now, [but] he’s wasting good form by shot selection.”
“He’s the sort of player that you want in your team, because there’s the match-winner and there’s a player who can take on any type of bowling, and he’s fearless. That’s a remarkable characteristic for a player that hasn’t played a lot of international cricket”
Daniel Vettori
“It feels like the game is too easy for him, so ‘I’m going to try something different, I’m going to try and make sure I can play every shot in the book’. He is at his best when he’s striking down the ground. He’s a joy to watch when he’s playing that well. But everything looks a little bit easy and sometimes it feels like he isn’t in the moment, and then he’s out,” Vettori said. “We talk about this more often than not, probably, about a Sanju Samson innings, where he’s 30 off 20 or 30 off 18, and it’s been brilliant. But he doesn’t actually carry the team on to the performance that they need.
“As I’ve said before, the game just comes too easy for him. ‘I’ve missed it this time, so I’ll try it again and I’ll make sure I have it this time’. Hasaranga was a good match-up for him, so he almost needed to respect the fact that Hasaranga is such a good bowler and it’s not going to be that easy. But it looked like Sanju just thought it would be easy.”
“I don’t think so, I think it will be a body of work,” Vettori said when asked about Samson’s chances of an India recall. “Particularly if he leads Rajasthan to the final or win it, I think that will play a huge part in a recall.
“He’s the sort of player that you want in your team, because there’s the match-winner and there’s a player who can take on any type of bowling, and he’s fearless. That’s a remarkable characteristic for a player that hasn’t played a lot of international cricket.”