Picture Credit: X
The latest to get into the eyes of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is wicketkeeper-batter Sanju Samson. However, the 30-year-old Kerala player was omitted from the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 squad after he missed the preparatory camp ahead of the Vijay Hazare Trophy. Seeing the series of events, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has also spoken at length in the matter.
The political leader blamed the Kerala Cricket Assoictaion (KCA) after Sanju Samson was dropped from the side and star Indian wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant and KL Rahul were picked ahead of them. Notably, Ajit Agarkar along with skipper Rohit Sharma announced India’s 15-member squad for the upcoming marquee tournament.
His career destroyed by the egos of cricket adminstrators: Shashi Tharoor
Tharoor blamed the KCA for dropping Sanju Samson from the Vijay Hazare Trophy 2024-25 claiming that it led to him getting dropped from the Indian team. The Congress MP also mentioned how Samson had informed KCA in advance about his inavailability for the training camp, but had confirmed his availablity for the tournament. “The sorry saga of the Kerala Cricket Association and Sanju Samson -- the player wrote to KCA, in advance, regretting his inability to attend a training camp between the SMAT and the Vijay Hazare Trophy tournaments, and was promptly dropped from the squad -- has now resulted in Sanju's exclusion from the Indian team,” his message began.
“A batsman who has a highest score of 212* in the Hazare, who averages 56.66 in ODIs for India (including a century in his last outing, against South Africa) is having his career destroyed by the egos of cricket administrators. Doesn't it bother the KCA bosses that by leaving Sanju out, they ensured Kerala didn't even reach the quarter-finals of the Hazare? Where does this leave him?,” Tharoor wrote on X.
While this rests at one end, the KCA President Jayesh George has slammed Sanju Samson for missing the training camp. “I am not sure if Samson missing the tournament was the reason he was excluded. The reason he was not added in the Vijay Hazare squad was because he sent a one-line text saying he would not be available for the 30-member preparatory camp. We were all of the impression that he would be leading the team since he is our white-ball captain and had led in the SMAT season as well,” he told MediaOne.
India’s squad for ICC Men’s Champions Trophy 2025
Rohit Sharma (Captain), Shubman Gill (vc), Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah (Subject to fitness), Arshdeep Singh, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rishabh Pant (wk) and Ravindra Jadeja.
