How horror times changed Samson

Until Tuesday, nothing seemed to go right for Sanju Samson this season. He had to tender an unconditional apology to the Kerala Cricket Association for an alleged misconduct, was dropped from the Kerala side midway through the Ranji Trophy, and had to tackle a knee injury that would often play up.

On the field as well, his average performances did little to help his cause as he failed to capitalise on a number of opportunities.

With just 334 runs to his name in 11 innings in the Ranji Trophy and an average of 18 in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, Sanju Samson’s mediocre show continued even in 2017 Indian Premier League as he managed to score just 13 in the first game against the Royal Challengers Bangalore.

However, the story on Tuesday was different. After scoring his first T20 century to guide Delhi Daredevils home, there was immense satisfaction on the 22-year-old’s face as Sanju Samson addressed the media.

“You need to have bad times to learn certain things about life,” Sanju Samson said.

“As a cricketer, if you make mistakes you learn from it in order to become a better person. I think my past has helped me to become a better cricketer and a better human being. I’ve learnt from it and I’m happy that my present is very good now.”

Sanju Samson’s knock, the sixth slowest for a batsman while scoring a century in the Indian Premier League, paved the path for Delhi Daredevils to post 205 as they thrashed Rising Pune Supergiant by 97 runs.

Samson started aggressively, paced his innings in the middle and then finished on a high with a six to bring up his ton.

“I think we need to change our batting style according to the match situation. I’ve been playing IPL for quite some time now so I’ve had my experiences.

“I learnt from it and sometimes you need to slow down to make a partnership so it was very important to drag on the innings and keep scoring actually,” Sanju Samson further added.

It didn’t take more than a couple of questions for Samson to reveal his dreams though.

“Every cricketer in India dreams to play for the Indian team. But to get into it, you have to do something special.

“So I’m happy that I played this knock, but there’s a long way to go,” he added. Samson has played just a single T20 for India, in a losing cause at Harare where he scored 19 off 24 balls.

He lauded captain Zaheer Khan, who took three wickets and chief mentor

Rahul Dravid for his knock as well.