Sanju Samson has finally returned to the Indian team as the selectors have chosen him for the upcoming home T20I series against Bangladesh. Samson feels fortunate to work with former Indian captain Rahul Dravid.
On last Thursday (24th October), the national selectors have announced the T20I and Test squads for the upcoming home series against Bangladesh. Sanju Samson, who has recently impressed with his impressive batting performances, has earned the national team call-up.
However, it is not the first time when Sanju Samson has earned the national team call-up. In past, he was included in the national squad as a reserve wicketkeeper. But Samson has played only one international game till the date.
Samson made debut in T20I on 19th July 2015. It was the match against the hosts Zimbabwe at Harare where he came to bat at middle-order and scored 19 runs.
After earning the latest call-up in the national team, Samson claimed that he was fortunate to work with Rahul Dravid. At a very young age, Samson started to play for Rajasthan Royals (RR) in 2013 while Dravid was playing his last season in Indian Premier League (IPL) for the same team. Later, Samson played under Dravid’s coaching in India A.
Samson recently told ESPNcricinfo, “I was fortunate enough to play with people like Rahul Dravid at the age of 19 and have him as a coach at India A. And meeting lots of people, like Ajinkya Rahane, Shane Watson, Steve Smith, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler – I talk a lot with them about the game.”
Sanju Samson talked about his List A double century knock
In the Vijay Hazare Trophy 2019/20, Sanju Samson impressed with his performances. The right-handed batsman scored 410 runs in eight innings (average 58.57) of that tournament. He finished that tournament as the second most run-scorer for his team Kerala.
His best knock in that tournament was a record-breaking performance. He scored 212 runs off just 129 balls in the Group Stage game against Goa. During that innings, Samson became the fastest List A double-centurion as well as the highest individual List A run-scorer as a wicketkeeper-batsman.
Sanju Samson admitted that it was a very challenging innings for him. He also kept wicket after that tireless batting performance.
He said, “Definitely, yes. Batting for the whole 45-50 overs and running hard between the wickets – I was batting with Sachin Baby and he made me run a lot of doubles and triples. I also had to keep for 50 overs.
“After that innings was the biggest challenge of my life. People were seeing that after 20 overs [of keeping], I had a headache. They were saying, you can stop and another keeper can come in. But I wanted to challenge myself. It took two to three days to recover after that.”