Sanju Samson’s career was going nowhere. The wicketkeeper batter wasn’t getting many opportunities. He got the chance to bat just 6 times in T20Is from January 3, 2023 to January 17, 2024. Samson was expected to play in the T20 World Cup 2024 but had to warm the bench as Rishabh Pant was chosen as the first-choice wicketkeeper.
Samson was already 29. With each passing year, time was running out. Everyone knew the kind of talent he possessed. But he couldn’t get regular opportunities. And when he did, Samson couldn’t perform. With Pant back, the chances of him getting more chances didn’t look great.
The trust Samson needed
Luckily for Samson, the new T20I captain, Suryakumar Yadav, and head coach, Gautam Gambhir, had trust in him. They had a plan for their tenure, and Samson was very much part of it. During a conversation with Ravichandran Ashwin on his YouTube channel, Samson revealed how Suryakumar and Gambhir helped him come back to the team.
“I was playing a Duleep Trophy game in Andhra, and Surya was playing as well. That’s when he came & said, ‘Chetta, there is a good opportunity coming for you; we have 7 games lined up, and I am going to give you all 7 games as an opener.’ The word coming from the captain was great,” said Samson.
The wicketkeeper had scored a fifty against Zimbabwe but then bagged two ducks against Sri Lanka. Across 4 matches, Samson scored just 70 runs. He felt this was it; he won’t get chances now. But Gambhir assured Samson that he won’t get dropped even if he scores 18 more ducks as India’s opener.
“Then I played 2 games in Sri Lanka and I got a duck in two games – I was a bit down; that’s when Gauti bhai saw me. He came up to me and asked, ‘What happened?’ I told him that I didn’t capitalise on the chances I got, and he was like, ‘So? I will remove you from the team only if you score 21 ducks.’ That kind of confidence from the captain and coach helped me to do what I did later on,” he added.
This sort of belief is what Samson needed. In the next 7 matches, he scored 3 hundreds. Two of which came away from home. In fact, since his T20I comeback, no one has scored more runs than him. All because of the sort of backing Suryakumar and Gambhir gave him.
Most runs for India since July 10, 2024
| Batter | Inns | Runs | HS | Avg | SR | 100s | 50s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sanju Samson | 16 | 487 | 111 | 34.78 | 171.47 | 3 | 1 |
| Abhishek Sharma | 14 | 435 | 135 | 31.07 | 193.33 | 1 | 2 |
| Tilak Varma | 9 | 413 | 120* | 82.60 | 170.66 | 2 | 1 |
| Hardik Pandya | 13 | 320 | 53 | 35.55 | 145.45 | 0 | 1 |
| Suryakumar Yadav | 14 | 258 | 75 | 18.42 | 161.25 | 0 | 2 |
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