Rajasthan Royals captain and wicket-keeper Sanju Samson has been a fan of MS Dhoni since he was a child. Dhoni made his India debut in 2004, when Samson was 10 years old, and has been and immediately became an icon among youth with his hairstyle, charisma, his towering sixes, and for his lightning-quick stumpings.
Hailing from Kerala, Samson, like any other young cricketer, looked up to Dhoni for inspiration for the Ranchi cricketer broke several barriers and became one of the biggest names in Indian cricket.
He recently recalled a special childhood memory involving MS Dhoni. “I used to adore MS Dhoni from my childhood. And I used to collect his stickers and paste in my geometry box,” he was quoted by crictoday.com as saying.
Samson wished to follow Dhoni’s footsteps, however, his international career has taken a hit. He has featured in 10 T20I, having made his debut in 2015 with the appearances coming few and far between. He averages 11.7 in T20Is with the highest score of 27. He has played a solitary ODI – last year against Sri Lanka.
With Rishabh Pant now the first-choice wicket-keeper batsman across formats, and Ishan Kishan too finding a place in the T20I side, Samson has been pushed down the pecking order.
Sanju Samson would be hoping to make a big statement in the upcoming IPL 2022 with the bat and as a captain of RR to gain selectors’ attention again.
He was the first player Rajasthan Royals retained, for 14 crore. Samson joined Royals in 2018 for INR 8 crore and was elevated to captaincy last season. Although he couldn’t take the team into the playoffs, he had a prolific season with the bat scoring 484 runs at a strike rate of 137.
His numbers have been impressive for RR since joining them in 2018 – 2391 runs at 30 while striking at 136 along with a couple of half-centuries. However, consistency has been his nemesis.
