Rajasthan Royals (RR), which was led by Sanju Samson, had a strong team for the IPL 2023. Even though they had a good start, they fell behind in the second part of the tournament and were no longer in the running for the playoffs. The one-time winners came in second, and many people think they lost because they didn’t use the Impact Player rule well, made silly mistakes when the game was on the line, and Jos Buttler and manager Samson didn’t play well enough.
Samson finished the IPL 2023 with 362 runs in 14 games, a strike rate of 153.38, and three 50s. Samson has gained a lot of fans over the years, including a number of past cricketers. But many people think he doesn’t always show how talented and skilled he really is. In this year’s tournament, he won a lot of times, but he couldn’t keep it up.
During the league stage of the IPL 2023, former India pacer S. Sreesanth said that Little Master Sunil Gavaskar gave Samson some advice, but Samson stuck to his own way of batting. Sreesanth backed Samson but told Star Sports that he wasn’t happy with how Samson responded to Gavaskar.
“I like Sanju because he was on my team when he was 14. When I’ve seen him play cricket in the last 4–5 years, I’ve always told him to do well in first-class cricket, not just the IPL. Do the same thing over and over. Ishan Kishan and Rishabh Pant were both ahead of him and still are. Pant isn’t there right now, but he will be back. I just met him, and he is sure that he can come back in 6 to 8 months.
“But in this IPL, Sanju was out in the first two or three games in a row. Gavaskar sir told him to give himself at least 10 balls. Read the fine print. We know you have a lot of skill because you can score 50 runs in 25 minutes, even if you have no runs after 12 balls. When RR lost one of their last league games, Sanju said, “No, I only play like this because that’s my style.” “I couldn’t take that in,” said Sreesanth.
Samson still has a chance to be on India’s ODI team since Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul, and Rishabh Pant are all hurt and the ODI World Cup is only a few months away. But he will need to be more reliable if he wants to stay in India’s white-ball plans.
