Former India player Dinesh Karthik has revealed the reason why Rishabh Pant was picked over Sanju Samson in the Indian squad for the Champions Trophy 2025. Despite Samson’s brilliant form in both ODIs and T20Is, he was not added to India’s squad.
As per Karthik, since Pant is a left-hander, he will give different variables to the batting order.
“It almost had to happen, isn’t it? It was either Rishabh Pant or Sanju Samson. I know you can look at both of them as pure batters, but I think they have tilted towards Rishabh Pant for just the one reason: because he is a left-hander. He can give that differential variable that they are looking for in the batting order. But Sanju Samson was so close, and the fact that he didn’t play in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, I am sure, has played a part in that too,” Karthik said on Cricbuzz’s HeyCBwithDK show.
Sanju Samson has been in brilliant form as he smashed three centuries in his last six T20I innings. He also made a hundred in his last ODI outing against South Africa in December 2023. The 30-year-old batter has an average of 56.66 after 14 innings in ODI cricket with 510 runs to his name at a strike rate of 99.60.
Rishabh Pant, on the other hand, has made 871 runs from 31 matches in ODIs at an average of 33.50 with the help of one hundred and five fifties. The Delhi-based player was also selected in the Playing XI ahead of Samson during the T20 World Cup 2024 as well. Samson is currently taking part in the T20I series against England where he scored 26 runs in the first game against England at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata.
India Champions Trophy Squad: Rohit Sharma (C), Virat Kohli, Shubman Gill (VC), Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Rishabh Pant (wk), Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh, Washington Sundar, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Kuldeep Yadav.