Star India player Sanju Samson shared that the Indian men’s cricket team captain Suryakumar Yadav and head coach Gautam Gambhir gave him confidence, which helped him take up the role of opening in T20Is. After a lot of ups and downs, he got consistent opportunities quite late.
However, Sanju’s breakthrough came in 2022 when he hit his first T20I fifty against Ireland, followed by an unbeaten 86 against South Africa in the ODI. In November 2023, he scored his maiden ODI hundred against South Africa, earning the Player of the Match award as well. Samson scored three T20I centuries in 2024.
“I’ve been on and off from the team and that was happening for a very long time. Honestly, that wasn’t easy. It was not easy to have those kinds of feelings. I had already played some 8-9 years of international cricket and I’d just played 15 games,” Sanju Samson told Ravichandran Ashwin on ‘Kutti Stories with Ash’.
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“I was there, I was not there. And I always tried to keep myself in a positive frame of mind. I kept assuring myself that it would happen, and different people have different journeys. Your journey is different, and be mindful of that, and you will get there whenever you are meant to be’. And suddenly the change happened after the [T20] World Cup,” he stated.
“Gautam Bhai came in, and Surya came in as the captain. I was playing a Duleep Trophy game in Andhra. Surya was playing on the other team. That’s when he said, ‘Chetta, there’s a huge opportunity coming up for you. We have seven games lined up and I’m going to give you all seven games as an opener’,” he added.
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However, he also shared that it was the boost of confidence that he needed after a few low scores as well.
Sanju continued: “I was like, ‘Super. Seven games as an opener’, it felt great that it came out of the captain’s mouth. And then I played two games in Sri Lanka and got out for a duck in both of them. The memories of being in and out of the team started flooding in, and I thought that was it. I was a bit down in the dressing room, and Gauti bhai saw it.”
“He came up to me and asked, what happened. I said, I got the chance, but got out for zero. He said, ‘So what’s the matter? I will remove you from the team only if you have scored 21 ducks’. That kind of confidence from the captain and coach raised my confidence,” Sanju Samson concluded.
