Dubai: Sanju Samson, who cracked his first century in the Indian Premier League (IPL) on Tuesday night to help Delhi Daredevils defeat Rising Pune Supergiant, owes his return to form to a tip from his childhood coach Biju George.
Speaking to Gulf News, Biju, who trains Samson at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) training centre at the Medical College ground in Trivandrum, said: “While leaving for IPL all that I did was to bless him and tell him to focus on the game totally and forget everything else.”
Samson had been passing through a tough phase of his career recently. He was dropped from the Kerala side midway through the Ranji Trophy, suffering from a knee issue which kept hurting him. He averaged only 18 in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and 30.36 from 11 matches in the Ranji Trophy. Over and above he had to tender an unconditional apology to the Kerala Cricket Association for an alleged misconduct.
Biju who has huge faith in his student’s talent asked Samson to believe in himself and get fitter. “He worked hard on his fitness and a lot of credit should go to Unni Krishnan the physiotherapist and Qfit Fitness Studio in Trivandrum. Once he was physically fit he got the mental space and worked hard with coach Rahul Dravid at the Delhi Daredevils camp. SAI training Centre has played a vital role in also preparing Sachin Baby, Prasanth Parameswaran and Raify Vincent Gomes who all played in the IPL,” added Biju.
Talking about his 102 which came off 63 balls with eight boundaries and five sixes, 22-year-old wicketkeeper-batsman Samson turned philosophical. “You need to have bad times to learn certain things about life. 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.”
When asked whether he changed his batting style to regain form, Samson replied: “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.”
Samson is focused on playing for India though the competition for the wicketkeeper-batsman slot is intense now.
“Every cricketer here 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,” added Samson, who has played only one T20 match for India against Zimbabwe at Harare in which he scored 19 off 24 balls.
Samson then went on to hail Dravid’s guidance, adding: “I was 17 when I was with the Rajasthan Royals and since then I have been working with Dravid and feel very blessed to be learning under his guidance. Not too many people get this chance and I feel I am extremely lucky to have him around and guide me I am very happy about this day. It’s one of the special days of my life.”
