From what angle is Sanju Samson talented?
His List A average is 28.57 and SR 78.43.
He isn't even good enough to be playing list A matches in my opinion.
And even his T20 numbers are very average.
He constantly loses matches for whatever side he plays for. He only kept getting picked because Rahul Dravid for some reason adores him.
I am simply going by IPL. He can play good speedy knocks and score 3;'s and 40's at 150 S/R. Same with Pant. They are good enough to play LOI's. Of course they are not ready for Test cricket. You need a better Keeper batsmen than them.
If you look at Dickwella, he is a decent keeper and batsman. Pant and Samson can do that job for India at least in T20's.
Also, MSD is the perfect player for India to bail India out of miserable situations like these. But these kids of situations are rare. Most of the times when MSD comes in, India are 220/5 in 38 overs. At that point, India needs acceleration which MSD cannot provide. I cannot count how many times MSD came in and killed all the momentum and India end up with only 300 instead of 330 or 340.
MSD is the best keeper in LOI's for sure. But as a batsman, barring crisis situations, off late he was very mediocre.