The press conference at Old Trafford on Thursday came down to one question nobody asked directly. With Sanju Samson managing six runs across three innings on the UK tour and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi sitting in the stands after the most extraordinary IPL season a 15-year-old has ever produced, India’s bowling coach Morne Morkel chose to answer that question anyway.
“He had a great IPL. So, I think as a coaching staff, it’s only fair to show faith and back your players. Yes, there’s a young man knocking on the door and it’s exciting. But I reckon for not just those two players at the top, but for the rest of the group, it’s a good sign that we show that we back you guys.”
Morne Morkel, pre-match press conference, Old Trafford, July 3, 2026
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi will be ready when he gets his opportunity to play, says India bowling coach, Morne Morkel.#ENGvIND #TeamIndia pic.twitter.com/E0zIt3TC3U
— Circle of Cricket (@circleofcricket) July 3, 2026
Four months ago, Sanju Samson was at the highest point of his career. He was Player of the Tournament as India retained the T20 World Cup in March 2026, with match-winning knocks against West Indies, England, and New Zealand in the knockout stages. He walked off the field with the trophy and the player-of-the-tournament medal around his neck.
That version of Samson feels a long way from Old Trafford right now. In three innings across the Ireland and England series, he has scored five, zero, and one. In Durham last Tuesday, he lasted seven balls before edging Saqib Mahmood to backward point.
The pressure from outside has been building since IPL 2026 ended. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi scored 776 runs for Rajasthan Royals at a strike rate of 237, won the Orange Cap at 15 years old, and forced the selectors’ hand. Ajit Agarkar, the chairman of selectors, said publicly that Sooryavanshi’s IPL performance “forced us to pick him.” He has been in the squad since Ireland. He has not played a single match.
Will Vaibhav Sooryavanshi make the Playing XI? 👀
Morne Morkel shares his thoughts on the teenage sensation.
Watch #ENGvIND 2nd T20I, TODAY 6 PM onwards, LIVE on Sony Sports Network TV channels & Sony LIV. #SonySportsNetwork #MamlaPersonalHai #ExtraaaInnings pic.twitter.com/ZCs3MOrWTU
— Sony Sports Network (@SonySportsNetwk) July 4, 2026
Morkel’s statement on Thursday contained one detail that most outlets moved past. When he spoke about the two openers, his language was not clean or settled. For Abhishek Sharma he said: “we’ve got the number one batter, or we had our number one batter in T20 cricket” starting in the present tense, then drifting mid-sentence to the past, then stopping. For Samson, there was no such drift. The language was only ever past tense: “Sanju was the player of the World Cup.”
That hesitation for Abhishek, and the absence of it for Samson, tells you something. Morkel was not reading from a script. He was thinking out loud about two players whose situations are not the same and the words landed accordingly.
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The line that most people moved past was this one: “for not just those two players at the top, but for the rest of the group, it’s a good sign that we show that we back you guys.”
That sentence was not spoken to Samson. It was not spoken to Sooryavanshi. It was spoken to eleven other players sitting in that dressing room, watching everything.
In professional cricket, a press conference is never only about the topic on the surface. When a coaching staff publicly defends a struggling senior player, every other player in the squad registers it. They file it away under a question they never ask out loud: what happens to me when I lose my place? What happens when the public turns on me? What happens when a younger player with better numbers is sitting right next to me?
The answer Morkel gave at Old Trafford on Thursday was: we will back you. We will not panic. We will not drop you the moment things get difficult.
Senior teams are built on that understanding. Players take risks when they know the staff will protect them. They don’t play for their place. They play for the team. The Samson decision is not only about Samson.
There is a second layer to this that makes the backing more significant. Former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan, speaking on JioHotstar during the 1st T20I, identified a specific technical problem in Samson’s batting that opposing teams have already planned around. Samson’s bat face remains closed when he plays on the off side, which means that when bowlers hold a disciplined line outside off stump, he edges to slip, behind square, or to backward point. England had identified this before the match began and built their field around it.
This is not just a confidence slump or a run of low scores. It is a structural problem that good bowling attacks will return to every time. Morkel and the coaching staff know this. Working on it quietly while backing Samson publicly is how experienced teams handle these situations not through a selection change that amplifies the pressure on the player who needs space to fix the problem.
At Old Trafford today, Sooryavanshi posted two words on his Instagram story: “New Chapter.” Whether his debut comes in this match or later in the series, the management’s position was stated clearly on Thursday evening. Morne Morkel and Sanju Samson are on the same side of this debate. The rest of the dressing room now knows that too.
Sources
- Pre-match press conference, Old Trafford, July 3, 2026 Business Standard
- Pre-match press conference, Old Trafford, July 3, 2026 Sky Sports
- Pre-match press conference, Old Trafford, July 3, 2026 India TV News
- Pre-match press conference, Old Trafford, July 3, 2026 Social News XYZ
- Irfan Pathan, JioHotstar, July 1, 2026 Circle of Cricket
- Rajeev Shukla, BCCI, July 4, 2026 SportsTak
- 2nd T20I match preview ESPNcricinfo
