Former England all-rounder Moeen Ali has asserted that the Indian team management, headed by Gautam Gambhir, has knocked the confidence of the Indian top-order batters Sanju Samson and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi by dropping them in the XI in the just-concluded T20I series in England.
Speaking exclusively on the ‘Beard Before Wicket’ podcast, Moeen Ali has reckoned that the Indian selectio committee shouldn’t have included Sooryavanshi if they were to drop him from the playing XI after giving only three chances.
“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 Sooryavanshi. Sooryavanshi 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,” Moeen Ali said on the ‘Beard Before Wicket’ podcast.
Furthermore, the former all-rounder has emphasized that a lot of outside noise has played a crucial role in India’s top-order not performing well throughout the five-match T20I series, which India lost by 0-4.
“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,” he added.
“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 concluded.
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