Sanju Samson should be allowed a long patch of failures: Sanjay Manjrekar

Star cricketer Sanju Samson enjoyed a terrific end to 2024, where he smashed three hundreds in the series against Bangladesh and South Africa. Overall, he aggregated 436 runs at an average of 43.60, where he struck the ball at 180.16 in 12 innings.

However, the wicketkeeper-batter's 2025 hasn't been a great one thus far, as the four matches of the England series saw Sanju amass only 35 runs, of which 26 came in the first encounter at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata. Despite the failure in such an important series saw the Kerala cricketer receive support from renowned expert Sanjay Manjrekar.

Manjrekar, a former Mumbai and India batter, was of the opinion that when players like Samson fail, they should be allowed an extended run since he has had the ability to put massive scores on the board. Furthermore, Manjrekar wants the selection committee to have a slightly more amount of patience when it comes to the case of Samson's place in the Indian team.

"You see with Sanju Samson, when he plays well, he gets an incredible hundred and puts your team in a winning position. So, such people are allowed failures and maybe a long patch of failures as well because that is the nature of these as a T20 cricketer, where you cannot play yourself, where you have to keep taking those risks that they take, and hopefully there is one innings that just propels him back into form," Manjrekar told on ESPNcricinfo.

"So, with Samson, I think you should just make sure that he gets as many innings as possible, purely because when he gets into form and plays well, he makes it all worth it. If that was another guy who was failing in this fashion and when he got into form just got you 40 or 50, then maybe you would offer him a shorter rope. But I will have a lot of patience with this current version of Sanju Samson," he added.

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Meanwhile, speaking of the series, Samson is all set to feature in the fifth and final T20I of the series, which gets underway on Sunday, February 02 at 7pm IST. The stumper-batter would want to make amends in the game at the iconic Wankhede Stadium of Mumbai, and end the series on a positive note.