The short-length delivery is one of the oldest tricks in cricket that has survived the wrath of time while holding on to its lethal nature. Among its many users, the West Indies speed demons from the era of 1980 to 2000 were the most proficient.

For Samson, it wasn’t the length that troubled him but the speed at which the ball came to him and the technique he implemented to overcome it. Samson’s entire series was summed up in his failed attempts to try to execute a pull shot.

Five matches, five different venues and five dismissals for Samson to Mark Wood, Jofra Archer and Saaqib Mahmood, all five while playing the pull shot, a pattern, coincidence or concern was the question left with the viewers.

“He is getting a little slow. The ball seems to be rushing onto him. That is something he needs to work on. After playing those shots, he could have maybe changed his trigger movement and got onto the off-stump because these players do that quite comfortably. So little street smartness at the right time should see him through,” Manjrekar said on ESPNcricinfo Timeout show while assessing Samson’s struggle.

While understanding the crux of Samson’s recent woes, the past doesn’t offer anything substantial to prove that pulling the ball away has been a long-term problem for him.

During India’s tour of South Africa in November, Samson tried to execute nine pulls or hooks against fast bowlers. In all of his attempts, he found success that brought him 35 runs without facing any dismissal.

Even in the last three seasons of the IPL, Samson has lost his wicket just four times in 55 balls while trying to pull the ball away against fast bowlers. He has maintained a strike rate of 272.72 while playing such shots, the sixth-best among the 36 batters who have scored at least 100 runs with those shots.

Considering the recent emergence of his issue, it could arguably come down to the approach that head coach Gautam Gambhir laid out after India’s 4-1 T20I series win over England.

After brutally hammering England with a 150-run win, Gambhir stressed the aggressive brand of cricket that he wants his side to play in the T20Is.

“That’s the kind of T20 cricket we want to play. We don’t want to fear losing a game of cricket. We want to play high-risk, high-reward cricket. And these guys have adopted that ideology, that policy really well. And I think the ideology of this T20 team is based on selflessness and fearlessness. And I think in the last six months, these guys have done it day in, day out,” Gambhir told the host broadcaster.

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