Shashi Tharoor, the Congress MP for Thiruvananthapuram, seized front stage after he was left out and attacked the Kerala Cricket Association.
The Indian team’s roster for the 2025 Champions Trophy was just revealed. Fans couldn’t help but notice that star hitter Sanju Samson’s name was missing from the lineup, which was full of celebrities.
Tharoor attributed Samson’s failure to make the Champions Trophy team to the board’s decision to remove him from the Vijay Hazare Trophy squad.
“Sanju Samson’s exclusion from the Indian team is the result of the sorry story of the Kerala Cricket Association and the player, who wrote to the KCA in advance to express regret for not being able to attend a training camp between the SMA and the Vijay Hazare Trophy tournaments and was immediately dropped from the squad,” Tharoor tweeted.
“The egos of cricket officials are destroying the career of a batsman who averages 56.66 in ODIs for India, including a century in his most recent appearance against South Africa, and who has a maximum score of 212* in the Hazare. Doesn’t it annoy the KCA executives that they made sure Kerala didn’t even make it to the Hazare quarterfinals by excluding Sanju? What does this leave him with? He went on.
The sorry saga of the Kerala Cricket Association and Sanju Samson — the player wrote to KCA, in advance, regretting his inability to attend a training camp between the SMA and the Vijay Hazare Trophy tournaments, and was promptly dropped from the squad — has now resulted in…
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) January 18, 2025
Notably, Samson chose not to participate in the training camp for the domestic 50-over competition while being a member of Kerala’s team in the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20. Although he informed the KCA that he would be available, the board chose to ignore him.
December 2023 was the last time the star hitter participated in an ODI. He has been in outstanding form in the shortest format, but the Indian team did not play many ODIs in 2024.
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