Walking out to bat at number four for the Royals while chasing a massive total of 198 on the board, Samson displaced veteran Indian batter Ajinkya Rahane from the top spot to set a new all-time RR record. Through the course of his knock of 42 in 25 balls, Samson became the Rajasthan Royals’ all-time top scorer in history.
Samson now has a total of 3138 runs in 118 matches for RR with an average of 30.46 and a strike rate of 137.99. This tally includes a total of two centuries and 18 half-centuries. Rahane had scored 3098 runs in 106 games with an average of 35.60 and a strike-rate of 122.30. Shane Watson, Jos Buttler, and Rahul Dravid occupy the third, fourth, and fifth spots on the list, respectively.
“To be honest, it was a very good track to bat on, not much movement with the new ball and they batted really well, had the momentum in the powerplay. Our bowlers used the variations on a high-scoring wicket and I thought we did well to restrict them to 197. Jos wasn’t fully fit (injured his finger while taking the catch), the thinking behind keeping Padikkal (in the middle order) was to tackle their two spinners in the middle overs,” Samson said after the match.
“The coaches have put a lot of work behind him (on Dhruv Jurel), we had a work week camp before the IPL, but the way they have worked a lot of time in our academies (during off-season), having faced 1000s of balls and I’m happy with the way they’re progressing. I was expecting the dew to come in the second innings, but it was evident that it was there right at the start, need to be prepared better for such things in the next game,” he added.
