“Sanju Samson is answerable”-Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shashtri slam RR captain Sanju Samson’s tactics against RCB
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Ravi Shashtri, Sanju Samson and Sunil Gavaskar
Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shashtri were displeased with Rajasthan Royals skipper Sanju Samson’s tactics against the Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Tuesday. RR finally succumbed to Bangalore after enjoying two consecutive wins.
Sanju Samson was praised for an impressive captaincy but in this match, he was slammed by two ex-cricketers. Sunil Gavaskar questioned about his field setting while Shastri didn’t agree with his decision of handing the ball to Navdeep Saini in the 15th over.
Gavaskar was surprised by the fact that there was no deep fielder on the leg-side and this had helped Dinesh Karthik because that side is Karthik’s strong-point.
In the penultimate over, when Karthik hit a boundary towards the deep mid-wicket off Prasidh Krishna’s full-length delivery, Gavaskar said on-air: “Sanju Samson is answerable. Questions must be asked. No fielders in the deep on the on-side will always be easy picking for someone like Dinesh Karthik.”
Karthik played a knock of 44 not out off 23 balls and with the partnership with Shahbaz Ahmed (45), helped RCB recover from a perilous position of 87/5 to win the match by 4 wickets. This brilliant game of Karthik also earned him the Player of the Match award.
“You went to someone as inexperienced as Saini”- Ravi Shashtri on Sanju Samson
RCB still needed 61 runs in the last six overs. But in the 15th over, Sanju Samson decided to give the ball to the inexperienced Navdeep Saini instead of Yuzvendra Chahal. Saini conceded 17 runs and the over proved to be an expensive one.
“Ashwin helped (Karthik with that no ball) because you give momentum to a batter who just come into the crease. He got a free hit. If that wasn’t the case then he might have thought twice about whether to play that shot or not but once you get a free hit, you can go for the boundary hit. Then he got another one and the momentum was with him.” Said Shashtri on ESPNCricinfo.
“You go for 21 now what does the fielding side do at that stage. The immediate next over, you gotta go for someone who is your banker. And I thought Chahal should have bowled that over. Yeah (tactical error from Royals). You went to someone as inexperienced as Saini. Of the entire lot, the most inexperienced was Saini. He went for 17 and you were done and dusted.” Ravi Shashtri added.
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