It’s a three-layered tale of struggle. The short ball troubles him in the format. Of the 17 times he has been caught off seamers in T20Is, the short-balls have accounted for him eight times. There is a pattern in that too — either he gets out to the quicks or the medium pacers operating at a slower bandwidth. The spectrum ranges from Jofra Archer to Blessing Muzarabani. He is an excellent puller, but if the ball is within a certain pace-scale. He disdains those in the 130-140kph range. But those upwards hustle him and those beneath tax him with their sluggishness. Undoubtedly, the nature of pitch too plays a decisive role. On a fast wicket, even a 130kph-er could trouble him, or on a slow surface even a 145kph-er would not.

But the heart of the short-ball working over is not his ineptitude to hit the short-ball to the fence, but the methods he has sought to address it. It began at Eden Gardens when Mark Wood and Archer strangled him. Twenty two of his 26 runs came off one Gus Atkinson over. From the other 14 balls, Archer and Wood combined, he mustered only four. A good number of them were hard length balls into his body, strangulating him for the width he relishes to swing those quick hands. So he began to counter-intuitively premeditate, and got himself into self-entangled tangles.

A few balls before his dismissal, he backed away and tried to hack a short ball from Wood through covers. He missed it altogether, like someone trying darts for the first time. When Archer came, preempting that he would go short, he tried to sell him a dummy by pulling his back-leg away before shuffling across like he normally would. But the early movement meant he was late into the shot and his balance went off-kilter. He was on his toes, the front foot squared up and facing long-off, the upper body hardly swivelled with just the hands going through the shot. His hands are so good that he timed the ball decently, but didn’t get the required distance to clear the fence.

In Chennai, he second-guessed that Archer and Co would examine him with short-balls again. So did Archer. Three of the seven balls he bowled at him were short (the rest were hard length). He tried to pull all three, either mis-timed or miscued all. The third endeavour fetched Archer the wicket. He went back and across early to set himself up for the short-ball by getting inside the line. The method had yielded him boundaries on bouncy South African tracks where he scored successive hundreds. He would use the pace of the ball and glide it behind square, rather than hitting them in front. But the sheer pace (148 kph) and the laser-guided precision of Archer tucked him into top-edging the ball to deep square leg. Though he was waiting on the back foot, he could not transfer any weight into the shot. He could not even complete it.

However, Sanju would rather die trying than shrink away from the challenge. So during the nets in Rajkot, he faced short-ball throwdowns with plastic balls on cemented pitches to sharpen his reflexes. By then, it had inflated into a tussle of hubris, moving from technical to a psychological space. He wanted to show that he doesn’t duck away from the short-ball menace, he is determined to demonstrate that he is not only unafraid of the short ball but also can dominate it. The (false) indefatigability only served the purpose of putting him into even worse impossible positions to counter the short ball.

In Rajkot, Archer straightaway interrogated him with a couple of short stuff which darted into his body. Both times, he repelled with control. On both instances, he was still, his movements minimalistic and consequently got into comfortable positions. There was a conscious effort to rise with the ball, hands held high and head unwavering.

India’s Sanju Samson walks off the field after losing his wicket during the first T20 cricket match between India and England at Eden Gardens in Kolkata, India, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo)

Unbalanced pull

But when he faced Archer next — after five balls from Wood — he couldn’t resist backing away and pulling a rib-tickler (more hard than short length). Yet again, his feet remained stuck at the crease after the initial movement.
At the point of impact, his back-leg was unusually bent, the slouched front-foot faced the bowler and the upper body semi opened-up, rendering him utterly unbalanced to pull, which he instinctively, and fatally, performed.

Some of his short-ball woes, thus, are self-inflicted. Like his pre-delivery movements that leave him unbalanced and static at the crease, impeding a smooth transfer of weight. He gets a fraction too low in his stance.

Digging up old clips could instruct him about the virtues of minimalism and stillness. He could also learn from past masters on how to dodge past flaws. He could be smarter in manipulating the bowler’s pace for runs behind the square; he could burn a bit of the ego, or more prudently see off the bouncer barrage and harness the stronger facets of the game. Or perhaps, he needn’t be this desperate to hit every ball towards the fence.

But his problem needs immediate redressal, lest the news would gather fire and the short ball would consume him, as it had several other careers touted to achieve greatness. The short-ball, though, is cricket’s greatest survivor, breathing and bathing in intimidation.