Sanju Samson’s father Vishwanathan Samson blamed former and current Indian leadership for wasting his son’s vital years of his career. He criticized former captains MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and former coach Rahul Dravid for not giving enough chances to Sanju for proving his worth for a place in the Indian team.
Sanju made his T20I debut for a second-string Indian side in July 2015 against Zimbabwe under Ajinkya Rahane. However, he was dropped from the team after a solitary appearance on the return of Dhoni as a leader. Samson then made his return to the side after five years in January 2020 under the captaincy of Virat Kohli.
In the past few years, Samson has not gotten enough opportunities to cement his place in the Indian side, In fact, he has played only 16 ODIs after making his debut in the format in 2021, despite having an average of over 55.
Vishwanathan put forth his opinion in a recent interview with a Kerala-based news outlet, Media One and said:
“There are 3-4 people who wasted 10 years of my son’s vital career… captains like Dhoni ji, Virat [Kohli] ji, Rohit [Sharma] ji, and coach [Rahul] Dravid ji.”
However, Sanju’s father feels his son has always made strong comebacks after setbacks, and he will continue to do so in the future.
“The more they hurt him, the stronger Sanju came out of the crisis.”
Vishwanathan also lambasted former Indian batter Kris Srikkanth for belittling Sanju Samson’s century against Bangladesh, which helped the Indian side to record their highest-ever T20I score of 297 last month. Srikkanth felt that Samson’s ton was not noteworthy, as it came against a weak side like Bangladesh.
Sanju Samson disappoints after scoring a century in T20I series against South Africa
The keeper-batter, Sanju Samson was sensational in the opening game of the ongoing four-match T20I series against South Africa. He slammed 107 off 50 balls, with seven fours and 10 sixes and became the first Indian player to score back-to-back hundreds in T20Is. His knock helped the Indian side to win by 61 runs.
However, in the last two games, Samson has struggled to cope with the pace and bounce of Marco Jansen. On both occasions, the left-arm pacer has breached Samson’s defense and sent him packing for a duck. As a result, the side was devoid of a good start in the second T20I and had to settle for a low score of 124, and eventually lose the game.
The third T20I saw Abhishek Sharma and Tilak Varma employing an aggressive approach to help India recover well after losing Samson’s wicket. In the end, India posted 219 and won the game by 11 runs.
In 36 T20Is, Sanju Samson has garnered 701 runs at an average of 24.17 and a strike rate of 150.42. The final game of the South Africa series will be crucial for Samson’s confidence ahead of the home T20I series against England in January.
