Sanju Samson needs to replace Suryakumar Yadav in ODIs: Wasim Jaffer

Former India opener Wasim Jaffer has backed Sanju Samson to play in place of Suryakumar Yadav in India's eleven in the lead up to the World Cup 2023.

The statement from Jaffer comes after Suryakumar was dismissed for a golden duck for the third consecutive time in the series against Australia on Wednesday.

The right-hander batter was trapped in front of the stumps on the first ball of his innings by Mitchell Starc in the first two matches in Mumbai and Visakhapatnam respectively. In the series-decider on Wednesday, left-arm spinner Ashton Agar also successfully sent him packing for a golden duck,

Jaffer has sympathised with the Mumbai batter but appealed to the management to give Kerala star Samson a chance. Notably, a spot in the middle-order has opened up after the injury of Shreyas Iyer who will reportedly be out for five months.

"I would probably sympathise with him. It doesn't happen with probably a number eleven batter. It's one of those things that you get out for a golden duck three times in a row. It probably would never happen to him again, hopefully. It's just a bad luck to him. But I think India need to look somewhere else," Jaffer told ESPNcricinfo.

"Even though he is a quality player, he would come out pretty good as the IPL will start and he will be in his element. But India needs to look at Sanju Samson or somewhere else and still stick with Surya because he is a quality player.

"If he comes good, we all know he is a quality player and so you just don't need to keep him aside. If IPL goes well, we will be tempted to play him again but India need to look at Sanju Samson as well," he added.

Suryakumar Yadav in his last 10 ODI innings has scores of - 8, 4, 34*, 6, 4, 31, 14, 0, 0, 0. Overall, the 32-year-old has featured in 23 ODI matches and scored 433 runs at an average of 24.05 and a strike rate of 102.12.

Samson, on the other hand, has 330 runs in 11 matches at an average of 66 and a strike rate of 104.76. His last five ODI matches have seen him score - 36, 2*, 30*, 86* and 15. The 28-year-old last played an ODI match in November 2022.