KCA administrators' ego is destroying Sanju Samson's cricket career: Shashi Tharoor

The Indian team recently announced their squad for the upcoming Champions Trophy 2025. With a star-studded lineup, fans could not help but notice the missing name of star batter Sanju Samson. Seeing his exclusion, Shashi Tharoor, the Congress Member of Parliament for Thiruvananthapuram, took centre stage and slammed the Kerala Cricket Association.

Tharoor blamed the board’s decision to drop Samson from the Vijay Hazare Trophy squad as the reason why he failed to make it to the Champions Trophy squad.

“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 SMA and the Vijay Hazare Trophy tournaments, and was promptly dropped from the squad -- has now resulted in Sanju's exclusion from the Indian team,” Tharoor tweeted.

“A batter 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?” he added.

It is worth noting that Samson was a part of Kerala’s squad in the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 but opted out of the preparatory camp for the domestic 50-over tournament. He did tell the KCA that he would be available, but he was overlooked by the board. 

The star batter last played an ODI in December 2023. The Indian team did not play many ODIs in 2024, but he has been in exceptional form in the shortest format.