The Indian team is gearing up to face the West Indies in the final assignment of a month-long tour after the Test matches and three one-day internationals – a five-match T20I series. While Test matches were a no contest, ODIs saw a bit of fight from the Windies as they even won a game before India clinched the series and now T20Is are expected to be even closer given some of the format-specialists will return for both teams.
That the Men in Maroon came out on top against South Africa in an away series earlier this year under new captain Rovman Powell, gives them a little more confidence coming into this series. Powell’s captaincy has already impressed many in the Caribbean after he led Jamaica Tallawahs to the CPL title last year and will be hoping for a good result against India as well. For India, Sanju Samson has returned while there are maiden call-ups for Yashasvi Jaiswal and Tilak Varma.
Samson got injured after the first T20I against Sri Lanka at the start of the year and hasn’t played since then in the format for India. However, after a decent IPL season, which could have been a lot better as per the standards he has set for himself, Samson got an opportunity in the ODIs and smashed a 39-ball fifty in the decider.
The 28-year-old wicketkeeper batter is all set to start in the playing XI for the T20 series opener and finds himself on the heels of achieving a massive milestone. Samson, who has played 241 career matches in T20 cricket, has 5979 runs to his name and is just 21 runs away from the 6000-run landmark. If he does achieve that, Samson will become the 13th Indian to achieve the milestone with the likes of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, MS Dhoni, Shikhar Dhawan, Dinesh Karthik and Suresh Raina among others already on the list.
Most runs in T20 cricket by Indian players
11965 – Virat Kohli
11035 – Rohit Sharma
9645 – Shikhar Dhawan
8654 – Suresh Raina
7272 – Robin Uthappa
7271 – MS Dhoni
7081 – Dinesh Karthik
7066 – KL Rahul
6810 – Manish Pandey
6503 – Suryakumar Yadav
6402 – Gautam Gambhir
6028 – Ambati Rayudu
5979 – Sanju Samson*
Latest Cricket News
