XtraTime Web Desk: Sanju Samson has established himself as one of the lynchpins in Rajasthan Royals’ set up since re-joining the franchise in 2015. The talented batsman from Kerala is hogging the limelight with his power-hitting in the 13th edition of IPL so far. Samson, who had never hit consecutive half centuries for the Royals has already have scores of 74 off 32 (CSK) and 85 off 42 (KXIP). It was his effort in the match against Kings XI Punjab that helped Rajasthan to register the record run chase in the history of the cash rich league.
The 25 year old cricketer has found a new success mantra and that stems from some intense work on his strength and power hitting. It was last season that he realized he needs to do some soul-searching as to where he was going wrong. He decided to dedicate everything towards cricket and nothing else and that transformed into his game. One of the features of Samson’s batting in both his half-centuries so far has been his power hitting: he’s hit 16 sixes and five fours in 74 balls faced so far. The cricketer from Kerala had worked on his range-hitting skills during the pandemic-enforced break from cricket.
Samson came into reckoning with his gritty knocks for Rajasthan Royals in his debut season for the franchise. The wicketkeeper-batsman was groomed by none other than former Indian cricketer Rahul Dravid, who was the mentor then. It was Dravid who instilled in him the toughness that is required to succeed in competitive level.
Since making his first class debut at the age of 17 for the state side, Samson has always been seen as the next big thing from Kerala as far as the game of cricket is concerned. He made an immediate impact in the season following his debut, scoring two hundreds and five fifties. It was his show in the domestic season that landed him an IPL contract with KKR in 2012 but unfortunately he did not get a game.
A stint at Rajasthan Royals with former India captain Rahul Dravid developed him as a cricketer. He followed his mentor at Delhi Daredevils when Dravid was the Head Coach in IPL 2016. The wicket-keeper repaid his faith by becoming the third highest run-scorer for his team.
However, over the years, he has never had that breakthrough season in IPL which would help him to push his case forward. He would start an IPL season with a flurry of impressive scores, only to fizzle out as the tournament progressed.
With renewed energy compounded with a lot of soul searching and working on his power hitting, Sanju Samson perhaps could have the best season in his IPL career something that will cement the Rajasthan Royals’s wicket-keeper batsman’s place in the Indian team in the white ball format.