At his absolute best, Sanju Samson is a sight for the gods. Tall and upright, and blessed with an elegance that only comes to a select few, he makes batting look the easiest proposition in the world. The hallmark of top-class batters, they say, is the ability to pick the length early and play the ball late. Samson is as felicitous as they come, easy on the eye and making the best of bowlers appear commonplace.
So far so good. Samson, however, hasn’t been at his absolute best for sustained periods of time which is why, two months shy of his 30th birthday, his international career is still at a crossroads, as it has been for several years now.
Samson was only 20 when he first played for the country, in a Twenty20 International against Zimbabwe in Harare in July 2015.
In the subsequent nine years, he has only made 30 T20I appearances; his One-Day International career didn’t take off until July 2021, and he has 16 ODI caps. These aren’t perhaps the numbers a batter of his immense skill sets deserve, but Samson is a victim as much of the profusion of riches India can summon as his own fallibilities which haven’t allowed him to average more than 19.30 at a strike-rate of 131.36 in his T20I career.
His ODI record is far more inspiring, suggesting that he deserves a longer run in the longer white-ball format. Fourteen innings have yielded 510 runs at 56.66, and a strike-rate of 99.60 is in keeping with the demands on a middle-over batter in an era where 300 is no longer the exception.
But Samson has made his name as a T20 destroyer, a legacy of his dominant performances for Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League where he has hit numerous peaks and sent some of the greatest performers of the past into raptures with his silken touch and his delectable placement, which is why it is hard to reconcile to his modest performances for the country.
Samson’s supporters – and there are millions of them – will point to the fact that he has seldom got the bouquet of chances that those that are less gifted than him, they will argue, have been bestowed with. That argument won’t be without justification; but the corollary to that is that in the chances that have come his way, he may not have done enough to convince the decision-makers that he deserves a longer rope.
Samson has topped 30 just four times in 26 T20I innings, and he has batted below No. 5 just twice. He himself will be the first to admit that those aren’t exactly flattering numbers, nor is the fact that he has gone past 15 just twice in his last seven innings or that his last two knocks have failed to produce a single run, in Sri Lanka in July.
Weight of expectations
What ails Samson on the highest stage of all, then? It can’t be talent or skill, because when he has made runs, he has done so with the same consummate ease as in the IPL, which sometimes can pose a more potent threat than international cricket. Maybe he is guilty of choosing the wrong shots at the wrong time – read early in his innings – or that the rub of the green hasn’t always gone his way in that his first mistake has often been his last. Maybe he is feeling the burden of expectations and has allowed that weight to burgeon with each passing low score. Because no one can state with any authority that he doesn’t’ belong in international cricket.
How else could he have made his mark in 50-over cricket? It took him a minute to break into the ODI set-up and he hasn’t been a regular there too, his chances often coming when many of the first-choice players have been rested, but there he has grabbed his chances unfailingly with a consistency that is markedly in contrast to his T20I record.
His last ODI knock was a beautifully flowing 108 against South Africa in Paarl in December, and he was unlucky not to figure in the three-match series in Sri Lanka last month, but that has plenty to do with the return to action of Rishabh Pant, back in business after his horrendous road accident in December 2022.
Samson’s 50-over time will come, and not too long from now, one suspects. India don’t have any more ODIs for the rest of the year, but early in 2025, they will play England at home in preparation for the Champions Trophy, being revived after nearly eight years.
It is possible that after that tournament, batting slots will open up and Samson will be one of the frontrunners to make his comeback, especially with the bigger picture and the 2027 World Cup in mind.
Until then, however, he has T20I series at home against Bangladesh and in South Africa in November to convince his doubters, as much as himself, that he still has plenty to offer on the international stage.
India are entering a tense, brave, exciting new phase in that version under a new captain and with a new head coach firmly in place.
For now, Suryakumar Yadav has been identified as the man best suited to lead India’s title defence in the next T20 World Cup, in India and Sri Lanka in 2026, and he and Gautam Gambhir will begin the process of identifying the key cogs in the wheel in right earnest, now that Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja have all bid adieu to the hustle and bustle of the 20-over format.
The next few months will, therefore, be crucial to how Samson’s immediate future shapes up. Assuming the think-tank keeps the faith and continues to invest in him, it will be up to him to make multiple statements of intent through meaningful contributions that will comprehensively erase the tag of T20 underachiever for the country. That will require, more than anything else, just a slight reset of the thinking process rather than a major technical or game-related physical overhaul.
A little more judiciousness in shot selection won’t be out of place, nor will be the infusion of loads of positive messaging and confidence boost from the brains’ trust. Samson isn’t yet in the senior statesman category, but he is a seasoned cricketer at the representative level and a leader in his own right, not just the captain of his IPL franchise. He has a good cricketing brain and can be relied upon to weigh in with pithy inputs in the decision-making process, but all that will be secondary to the runs that he will expect off his own willow.
Realistic prospects
That he isn’t in the red-ball scheme of things for now was evident from his non-inclusion in any of the four squads picked by Ajit Agarkar’s national selection panel for the ongoing Duleep Trophy. Samson snuck in as a late replacement for the injured Ishan Kishan in the India-D side that played India-C in Anantapur, though it was K.S. Bharat who kept wickets in the four-wicket loss. There is a rich array of wicketkeeper-batter riches that India can pick from – apart from Pant, Kishan and Bharat, the others in the fray are Dhruv Jurel, who had three excellent Tests against England at home earlier this year, as well as Abhishek Porel. The Test door might not yet be shut on Samson, but it will take him a Herculean effort to prise it open. The more alluring and realistic prospects lie in the two white-ball variants, especially with so many big-ticket events coming on the back of each other – the Champions Trophy next year, the T20 World Cup in 2026 and the 50-over World Cup in 2027.
It will be a travesty if Samson’s international career remains one less fulfilled. The hallmark of a quality batter is in how easy he makes that particular vocation appear. Samson is aesthetically gifted and works as hard as anyone else; he is a keen listener and an avid student, and he will benefit from being reunited with Rahul Dravid, who has taken charge as head coach of Rajasthan Royals once again. Dravid and Samson share not just a terrific working relationship but also a great empathetic bond, and if the captain can make the most of having the head coach back in his corner, it won’t just be Samson who comes out a winner.
Samson won’t be unaware that he will attract a lot of scrutiny and attention, both from his vast legion of adoring fans as well as the critics who won’t waste time in pointing out the disparity between his IPL and international numbers. It’s all fine to say that he shouldn’t waste time on issues that are beyond his control but as a human being, it is inevitable that he will spend at least a little bit of his energy on this issue. More of his energy will be concentrated on how he can be the best version of himself with the cricket bat more often than not. After all, that is what will take him onwards and upwards, which is the perennial endeavour of every competitive sportsperson worth their salt.
Published – September 08, 2024 11:14 pm IST
