Former India player Aakash Chopra has praised Sanju Samson for scoring a stunning half-century in the second T20I against Afghanistan. He said that the veteran wicketkeeper-batter would have been under immense pressure as his place in the XI was at stake as well.

In a video shared on his YouTube channel, ‘Aakash Chopra,’ he said, “If you had seen the match and listened to the mid-match conversation, everything was pointing in one direction that there was pressure on Sanju. Sometimes you feel that it’s slightly wrong. Why should the pressure be there if you played three consecutive good knocks in the World Cup quarterfinal, semi-final, and final?”

“The pressure was there because two innings had gone bad in Ireland, and one-and-a-half innings had gone bad in England. One was in the washed-out match. So it shouldn’t be counted, but he was dropped after that. He wasn’t sent to Zimbabwe. Vaibhav Suryavanshi kept scoring runs in his absence, and the sword was hanging over his (Samson’s) head,” he added.

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“The good thing is that he was finally played here. There is no doubt that the future will be extremely bright. Vaibhav Suryavanshi is the kind of player who will light up the future. All of us expect that and have a lot of confidence as well, but why are you compromising the present in the desire for a bright future? We were doing that with Sanju Samson,” he shared again.

However, Aakash Chopra also added that Sanju Samson, Vaibhav Suryavanshi, Abhishek Sharma, and Ishan Kishan bat similarly and they all can take the opposition attack to the cleaners.

“Vaibhav and Abhishek also score 50 runs off 20 balls. They are all similar kind of players. If you make Ishan open, he will also score 50 runs off 20 balls. India’s modern-day T20 batters are unbelievable. They don’t stop. Everyone’s template is the same. Everyone keeps hitting,” he said.

“This is high-risk cricket, which means there will be failures. If you make changes frequently, the player won’t remain a player. Everyone was talking about pressure, and Sanju would also have been feeling the pressure, and if he is feeling the pressure, will he be able to play with the same freedom again if he gets out a few times? Whoever plays high-risk cricket will probably be slightly less consistent,” he concluded.