India thrashed West Indies by five wickets in the first ODI at the Kensington Oval in Barbados on Thursday (July 27) to lead the three-match series 1-0. Riding on Kuldeep Yadav's splendid spell of 4/6, West Indies were skittled out for a paltry 114. In reply, India with some hiccups in between comfortably chased down the target in 22.5 overs, thanks to Ishan Kishan's calculative fifty.
But what surprised everyone was Sanju Samson's absence in India's playing XI. Sans injured KL Rahul, it was expected that Samson will be given a chance in the Men In Blue's final line-up. But Indian Team Management decided to to with southpaw Ishan Kishan at no.4 snubbing the right-handed star batter for the ODI opener against West Indies.
But an incident happened during the match which didn't let Sanju Samson's fans miss him. Suryakumar was seen sporting Samson's jersey when he walked down the ground. Instead of wearing his regular no.63 shirt, Suryakumar wore Samson's no.9 jersey as he took field against the West Indies.
His gesture certainly won the hearts of Samson's supporters. This is not the first time Suryakumar did it as last year, the Indian batter was spotted wearing Arshdeep Singh’s jersey during batting in India vs West Indies second T20I.
Why Suryakumar sported Samson's jersey?
It has been learnt that there was same size issue with Suryakumar's jersey and he was informed about it two days before the game. The source privy to the development also said that will be receiving his new jersey after the second ODI as BCCI has shipped it with Indian team players selected for the T20I series. Till then he will be wearing his team mate jersey while playing.
Notably, going by the rules, players cannot tape the names printed behind their jersey, which is why Suryakumar had not choice and he had to don Samson's jersey.
It will be interesting to see whether Sanju Samson gets a chance in the second ODI which will be played on July 29.
Talking about the first ODI, West Indies' batting woes as they were bundled out for a lowly 114, thanks to Kuldeep's brilliant spell of 4/6. Jadeja too chipped in with an impressive 3/37. And the rest was done by Kishan, who came to open India's innings in place of Rohit and proved his skipper's decision right. Kishan belted 52 off 46 riding on seven fours and a maximum.
MORE ON SPORTS TAK:
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