Former England all-rounder Moeen Ali slammed the Indian team management for experimenting with the top order during the T20I series. England trashed India 4-0 in the five-match series. Sanju Samson and Vaibhav Suryavanshi were in and out of the side.
Suryavanshi replaced Samson and made his international debut in the second T20I. However, after struggling in three games, he was dropped for the fifth game, with Samson coming back. Moeen Ali reckoned that India should have persisted with Suryavanshi after bringing him in. He expressed that the musical chairs in the selection would have hurt the confidence of both the batters.
“If you’re going to bring him in, you can’t drop him after two games. Rather don’t bring him in. They’ve knocked two guys’ confidence now. Sanju and Suryavanshi. Suryavanshi has come in for two (three) games. Obviously got dropped. He’s 15 so he won’t be feeling it as much, I guess. They don’t overthink at that age. But Sanju got dropped after being Player of the Tournament in the World Cup. Couple of low scores and you drop for a player, which is fine, but then you bring him back in. So both of them are low on confidence. It’s a bit of a blow for both of them, which I don’t agree with,” he said on the ‘Beard Before Wicket‘ podcast.
Moeen Alli added that the visitors were ‘poor’ and made errors in picking the right combination as well, playing too many left-handers in the top seven. The former all-rounder described how India went about things throughout the series as ‘shocking’.
“Its a shocking way and I think they just muddled up. I think India are going through a phase where there are scars in the combination with too many left-handers. I think they have generally been poor. They are normally actually very good at these things but they have been extremely poor.”
They lost the final T20I in Southampton by 56 runs, thus failing to win a single game in the series.
England spinner reckoned ‘noise’ played a big part in India’s selection
England spinner Adil Rashid, who was part of the recently concluded T20I series, said that ‘noise’ played a part in the selection and non-selection of Sanju Samson and Vaibhav Suryavanshi.
“It goes back to the noise the people make. Sanju was out, people were calling him for Vaibhav. Then all of a sudden he had a couple of bad games and people are saying right, Sanju should get back in. So that plays a part as well I think. So we bring Sanju in, but then who do we leave out? We can’t leave Abhishek out. I think noise played a big part in the come in and come out in that top order,” he said. (via the aforementioned source)
India struggled with getting big partnerships at the top due to shuffling in the top order throughout the series. Suryavanshi scored just 42 runs from three games, while Samson made 28 from two matches.
Edited by Rishab Vm
