Sanju Samson, India’s 27-year-old promising star as been one of the highly-rated T20 players from the country. Recently, India captain Rohit Sharma had hailed the youngster and his batting prowess and felt that the team needed a batsman of his ability in Australia for the 2022 T20 World Cup.
Sri Lankan cricket legend Kumar Sangakkara hailed Sanju Samson as “one of the best T20 players” before admitting that retaining him for the 2022 season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) was a no brainer.
Sanju Samson Is One Of The Best T20 Players: Kumar Sangakkara
Sanju Samson will be leading his franchise Rajasthan Royals for the second season in a row, having made his IPL debut for the franchise back in 2013. Over the course of years, he has grown in stature and his impressive return with the bat in the last two seasons saw him make a comeback in the Indian squad for the recent T20I series against Sri Lanka at home.
Rajasthan Royals’ Director of Cricket and head coach Kumar Sangakkara hailed the youngster’s destructive batting and called him a match-winner. He also praised his captaincy abilities.
“Irrespective of him being the captain or the future of RR, he is one of the best T20 players,” the head coach said.
“He is a magnificent player, destructive, match-winner, has every ability that you want in a batter. He was captain before I took over last season. I have come to know him really well and admire him.
“He’s got such a passion for RR. He started here, he values that. He is a captain who is willing to admit that he doesn’t know everything as yet and he is going to grow into it. He’s got natural leadership qualities. He’s going to get better and better.”
In IPL 2021, Sanju Samson scored 484 runs in 14 games at 40.33 and with a strike rate of 136.72 which included a century and two half-centuries. In 2020, he scored 375 runs in as many games at a strike rate of 158.89 with three half-centuries.
“He’s a simple guy, a man of few words, very grounded. He’s absolutely suited for this job and it’s made working with him so much easier and fun. He’s got a sense of humour as well, and it comes out once in a while. He’s got a lot of pride, he wants to win. All I can do is give him the best support to be able to be that leader he knows he can be,” Sangakkara added.
Sanju Samson has played 13 T20Is for India since 2015, but has managed just 174 runs at a below-par average of 14.50. He also played 1 ODI scoring 46 in the 2021 Sri Lanka tour. Sanju Samson was given a chance in Sri Lanka 2022 T20Is after a gap of 6 months. In the first match, he didn’t get a chance to bat but in the rest of the two matches, he played the cameos of 39(25) and 18(12). He managed 57 runs averaging 28.5 in the 2 innings he played.
Under late Shane Warne’s leadership, Rajasthan Royals won the inaugural season of the Indian Premier League in 2008, but the squad in pink has had a dry run since then. They’ve made the playoffs three times since their 2008 triumph but haven’t been able to recreate their achievements from the initial season.
The Rajasthan Royals have depended heavily on their foreign players, particularly England cricketers like Jos Buttler, Jofra Archer, Liam Livingstone, and Ben Stokes who formed a formidable core for the squad, which seemed to have shattered their dreams on multiple occasions.
Rajasthan Royals Had retained 3 Cricketers Sanju Samson, Jos Buttler And Yashasvi Jaiswal And Added 21 More Signings
Before IPL 2022, Rajasthan Royals had retained three-star players in the form of Sanju Samson (Rs 14 crores), Jos Buttler (Rs 10 crores), and Yashasvi Jaiswal (Rs 4 crores) and have added 21 more signings in the mega auctions.
The likes of Ravichandran Ashwin (Rs 5 crore), Trent Boult (Rs 8 crore), Shimron Hetmyer (Rs 8.5 crore), Devdutt Padikkal (Rs 7.75 crore), Prasidh Krishna (Rs 10 crore), Yuzvendra Chahal (Rs 6.5 crore), Riyan Parag (Rs 3.80 crore), KC Cariappa (Rs 30 lakh), Navdeep Saini (Rs 2.6 crore), Obed McCoy (Rs 75 lakhs), Karun Nair (Rs 1.4 crore), James Neesham (Rs 1.5 crore), Nathan Coulter-Nile (Rs 2 crore), Rassie van der Dussen (Rs 1 crore) and Daryl Mitchell (Rs 75 lakhs) were some of their new signings.