Sanju Samson scored the second-fastest hundred by an Indian in T20 cricket on Saturday helping India to get 297 runs. However, coming into the game he has been going through a lean patch and the 29-year-old admitted to wondering if he would get another chance after the two ducks he bagged against Sri Lanka in July.
“Like I was in doubt after a couple of ducks in Sri Lanka that I will be getting a chance,” said Samson after the third T20I. “Mentally you go through a lot as an individual as an Indian cricketer, especially in this format where failures are much higher than success as a batsman you have to keep being aggressive and keep looking at the scoring options. The risk is high and when the risk is high there are a lot of failures also.”
However, the centurion would credit the team management for showing faith and backing him. “The captain and the coach have been backing me like anything. in the next series but they backed me and kept saying we will keep backing you no matter what. I think we are committed as a batting group to go out and dominate every opposition.”
Samson said he was told that he would be opening in the series three weeks in advance which helped in his preparation. “Three weeks before the series I was very fortunate to get a message from the leadership group that I would be opening. So that gave me time for proper preparation. I went back to RR academy and was playing lots and lots against new balls. It helps a tiny bit that I was 10% more prepared in the series when compared to other series.”
Even in the current series, he had scores of 29 and 10 in the first two games. When asked about how difficult it is as a team member to adhere to attacking philosophy when the individual runs haven’t been coming he said: “When you have those failures it is easier to say I will make runs for myself. For me, it’s all about my friends, it’s all about my team.”
