‘It can’t happen’: Former India cricketer rules out Vaibhav Sooryavanshi replacing Sanju Samson

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and Sanju Samson (Image credit: Insta) Questions have resurfaced over Sanju Samson’s place in India’s T20I side after the wicketkeeper endured another modest outing in the series opener against the West Indies, but former India opener Aakash Chopra believes dropping him for Vaibhav Sooryavanshi is out of the question at this stage.Samson has scored 11, 2, 7 and 9 in his last four T20I innings, including a five-wicket haul against Japan. The recent run came after he smashed fifties in the T20I series against Afghanistan.However, the emergence of Sooryavanshi has added another dimension to the selection debate. The teenage batsman opened alongside Abhishek Sharma during the Asian Games, with Samson batting at No. 3. VVS Laxman was India’s head coach for the tournament, with Gautam Gambhir in charge of the ODI squad against the West Indies.For the ongoing series, India reverted to the opening combination of Samson and Abhishek, the pair that featured in the team’s World T20-winning campaign. However, Samson managed only nine in the first T20I against West Indies in Lucknow.Chopra backed the Kerala batsman to retain his place and argued that the team cannot keep questioning his position after every setback.In a video shared on his YouTube channel ‘Aakash Chopra’, the former India opener dismissed the prospect of Sooryavanshi replacing Samson for the second T20I.“With Bihar next door, there is talk of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi. Will there be a chance of him playing? No, he won’t. You’ll have to accept that he can’t be playing now, and if we start saying that about Sanju Samson after every match, we’ll be damned. How are you going to handle cricket then? Just don’t go there,” he said.Chopra also discussed the possibility of India bringing Nitish Kumar Reddy into the playing XI and admitted that he would like to see a chance to get an all-rounder, but was not sure if the team management shared that view.“I am definitely thinking seriously about Nitish Kumar Reddy. But I can’t even do that after the first game. I wanted you to play Nitish from the very beginning because how do you prepare him? But that’s my thinking and maybe yours, but the Indian team doesn’t think like that,” he noted.India will enter the second T20I in Ranchi on Friday, October 9 with a 1-0 lead in the five-match series after securing an emphatic eight-wicket victory in Lucknow.For Samson, the immediate task is to turn his launch into a substantial contribution and silence the growing criticism. He was dropped after three failures during India’s tour of Great Britain, after being named player of the tournament for the T20 World Cup.As Sooryavanshi continues to garner attention, Samson will want to make the most of his opportunity. While Chopra downplayed the prospect of an immediate change, the debate over India’s opening combination is unlikely to go away if the wicketkeeper-batsman struggles continue.

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