Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has blamed the Kerala Cricket Association (KCA) after Sanju Samson was excluded from India’s team for the ICC Champions Trophy 2025. Samson was unfortunately excluded from the team as the selectors chose Rishabh Pant and KL Rahul as the two wicketkeeper batters in the 15-member squad.
After being overlooked by team India, Tharoor accused the KCA of excluding him from the Vijay Hazare Trophy 2024-25 squad, asserting that this decision caused him to lose his place on the Indian team.
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Tharoor noted that Samson had previously notified KCA regarding his inability to participate in the training camp for both the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and Vijay Hazare Trophy.
However, Tharoor asserted that the association ultimately chose to exclude him and criticized the officials for ruining Samson’s career.
“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 Sanju’s exclusion from the Indian team. A batsman who has a highest score of 212* in the Hazare, who averages 56.66 in ODIs for India (including a century in his last outing, against South Africa) is having his career destroyed by the egos of cricket administrators. Doesn’t it bother the KCA bosses that by leaving Sanju out, they ensured Kerala didn’t even reach the quarter-finals of the Hazare? Where does this leave him?,” posted Samson on his X account.
Sanju Samson’s sensational ODI Career
Samson has been in remarkable form recently, having achieved three centuries in his past five T20I innings. He also scored a century in his most recent ODI match against South Africa in December 2023. The 30-year-old has an ODI cricket average of 56.66 after 14 innings, accumulating 510 runs with a strike rate of 99.60. He has recorded one hundred and three half-centuries in his career to date.
