​’Not easy running Indian team!’: Sanju Samson breaks silence on Vaibhav Sooryavanshi selection heat and tough leadership calls originally appeared on Cricket News.
Add Cricket News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.KEY TAKEAWAYS:Sanju Samson smashed 57 off 22 balls to help India win the second T20I against Afghanistan and ease selection pressure on himself.Samson publicly backed coach Gautam Gambhir’s tough calls, saying running the Indian team isn’t easy with Sooryavanshi’s recent form in mind.He emphasised communication as the key to navigating difficult selections, revealing Gambhir spoke to him extensively before and during the series.Sanju Samson empathises with Gautam Gambhir over Vaibhav Sooryavanshi selection battleSanju Samson had the bat do the talking first and then broke his silence on his ongoing selection battle with teenage star Vaibhav Sooryavanshi.After smashing 57 off 22 balls to power India to a seven-wicket win over Afghanistan in the second T20I in New Delhi on Tuesday, the wicketkeeper-batter made a candid admission about the selection pressure building around his place in the team, and why he understood every decision made by the Indian think tank. Samson walked out in this match under pressure, as he had had five consecutive failures behind him and a 15-year-old prodigy watching impatiently from the dugout. However, the fiery innings was the kind of knock that reminds everyone why he’s been backed repeatedly by Indian cricket despite the inconsistent returns.It also served as something of a reset, at least temporarily, in the increasingly noisy debate about whether Sooryavanshi should be opening ahead of him.After the victory, rather than deflecting the question about his rivalry with Sooryavanshi, Samson answered it with an unusual candour.”Running an Indian team is not an easy thing. You see, a 15-year-old boy has scored 700-800 runs,” Samson said.”Before the tournament, he had performed so well. He had to come in, some or the other manner. I think I had not performed in two or three games.”He was in form and he wanted to win games in that series. It was very understandable from a leadership kind of a thing. I think as I told before, I have been in this situation. I have also taken a lot of tough calls as a captain, so I understand. That’s where the communication comes in.”MORE: IND vs AFG 2nd T20I 2026: Sanju Samson’s 57 makes it an easy win for India BCCI/Creimas Why Samson credits the leadership group for making hard callsSamson’s broader point, beyond his own situation, was about the nature of strong leadership in Indian cricket, which is arguably the most watched and analysed team in the sport.He made a distinction between popular decisions and the right ones and hailed the constant communication he’d had with head coach Gautam Gambhir, both before the series and during it, which kept him in the loop about how the decisions were made.”Communication was very important. Even now,