Being a Sanju Samson admirer – for any length of time – means suffering from deep ambivalence. It is never a singular emotion: you’re smiling, and then taking your hair apart the next moment.
His batting style embodies the volatility of its career so far: breathtaking, unpredictable, perplexing… you can never, ever fully know.
One day from now, Samson turns 30. It’s been nearly a whole decade since he first put on an India T20I kit. Those were wildly different times. Ajinkya Rahane was leading a B-team in Zimbabwe, and ten of his India teammates from the current team were yet to debut.
In these ten years (including a five-year gap), Samson has batted everywhere from one to seven. Before his century against Bangladesh, he averaged 19.32 in 28 innings with a strike rate of 132.69. This year, he had ducks as an opener, at No.3 and No.5.
Samson’s fans and detractors have oscillated between arguments of “not getting a consistent run” versus “not making the most of the opportunities”.
One thing was clear: Samson was best utilised in the top three: it’s where he had played more than 70 per cent of his IPL career. At three, he’s hit three IPL centuries. But India’s T20I setup, up until recently, believed in stacking the top with anchors. There just wasn’t any space.
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Samson was the antithesis of that safe approach anyway. That meant every early dismissal would be scrutinised, and the lowly numbers scoffed at. The timing and manner of his exits, and his supposed one-track mindset and inflexibility turned him into the poster boy of “irresponsible” batting.
But Samson did not change the essence of his game. And he kept coming back. He’s now played under eight captains and three different coaching regimes. You just couldn’t keep him out for long, even if the results were less than ideal.
“I trust my shot-making ability and approach each ball with an attacking mindset, especially in T20Is,” he told JioCinema after the Durban hundred. “With this approach, there is success and failure as well – there are a lot of questions around me building the innings and consistency. In T20Is, I never thought of consistency, if there is a ball to be hit, it’s necessary for me to capitalise on that.”
With the seniors at the top, and middle-order options galore, Samson’s ins-and-outs did not help his cause. But the T20 World Cup (where he did not get a game), and a set of three retirements, were supposed to be the big break Samson needed.
