India’s England tour started with immediate chaos. Under a heavy, grey blanket of cloud at Chester-le-Street, the top order simply could not cope with the moving ball. It is a worrying trend carried over from the recent games in Ireland. Openers are supposed to set the tone, but Sanju Samson blew a massive chance to lock down his spot in the side. Seven balls. One run. A loose, nothing stroke.
He left his team completely in the mire before the middle order patched things up to drag India to something competitive. But the rain came down anyway, cutting the match short. Over on Jiohotstar, the pundits did not hold back. This was not a one-off piece of bad luck. It was a technical collapse under pressure against quality seam bowling.
Irfan Pathan exposes the off-stump glitch of Sanju Samson
Former national all-rounder Irfan Pathan broke down the dismissal, pointing out a specific technical flaw that rival analytics teams have clearly figured out. Samson keeps a closed bat face during his initial setup. Because of this, modern white-ball bowlers intentionally bowl way outside his off-stump.
The trouble starts when he tries to force an aerial shot through the offside field. The bat's face suddenly flies open. Bowlers just have to drag the ball away from the hitting zone or keep it wide to invite the thick edge. That is why he constantly holes out to slip, gets caught behind, or finds the fielders behind square. It is a regular trap now.
“You want to take the ball away from Sanju Samson. Even if you don’t take the ball away, you want to keep the line outside the off-stump because his bat face remains closed. When his bat face is closed, and he tries to play on the off-side, the bat face opens up at times,” Pathan said on Jiohotstar.
“That’s why we have seen him getting out in the slips, caught behind, and behind square many times. The thought process was to get him out with that plan. The field was changed, the bowler bowled that line, a slightly shorter length was bowled, where the ball was stopping a little, and Sanju got out there,” Pathan elaborated.
England played him like a fiddle. They tweaked the field specifically for him before Saqib Mahmood dropped one slightly short. The ball stuck in the surface. Samson went for it, and Tom Banton took a brilliant, lunging catch at backward point.
Opposition captains know exactly what to do when the pitch is a bit tacky. This latest failure heaps massive pressure on Samson. He does not have time on his side, especially with hungry young players sitting on the bench waiting to grab his place.
