A lion-hearted batting effort from the newly appointed skipper of the Rajasthan Royals, Sanju Samson, was such an impactful performance that despite being on the losing side, the Man-of-the-match award was given to him. In the end the Royals lost by just four runs, as they were one big hit away from victory.

In T20 cricket, the margin of loss is irrelevant, as no defeat is deemed respectful. But today’s carnage by Sanju, who carried the hopes of Rajasthan, deserves respect for its valor. Since the responsibility of being the captain was also to be fulfilled, he knew that he had to save his wicket at the end to see his side through.

After spending some time in the middle, Samson experienced a breakthrough in the 11th over, scoring 14 runs off Meredith’s second spell, as if he were never struggling to keep pace with the run chase.

Therefore, the knock that Sanju played will be a huge learning curve for him to teach him how to build an innings and not necessarily play a rash shot. 

Yes, his side did not win the game, and a few of his catches were dropped. However, the guile displayed by the Kerala batsman, as he took accountability for his actions and made it his mission to win the game for his team, was far more impressive than his inability to clear the boundary on the final ball by just a few meters. The attitude and approach shown by Sanju were unlike anything we had seen in any of his innings, whether with the national side or his franchise in the IPL.

Image courtesy : IPL/ Twitter

However, the instinctive batting does come naturally to him. He ranked as the second-highest player for the most sixes in the 2020 IPL edition, hitting a total of 26 sixes. In a recent interview with Cricinfo, he mentioned that scoring runs is not something he consciously does; it just happens for him.

In the same interview, he also mentioned the fact that he does not feel the need to carry the responsibility of being captain while he is batting because he wants to bat well to make the team win, irrespective of him being the captain or not. In contrast to what we said, as explained above, these might just be the early signs of him benefiting from the responsibility of being captain.

With two balls remaining and five runs to get, Samson denied himself a single, as he would have been off-strike, and Morris would have inevitably faced the final delivery with five runs to get. This act of Sanju directly tells you about the result that he wanted in his team’s favor. A possible six at the end would have justified his decision as the leader of the team to not take the single. But what happened on that delivery was a different story altogether.

We can only hope that Sanju goes from strength to strength, especially with the responsibility of the RR captaincy on his shoulders, and be a regular member of the national side in the upcoming months, which also entails the T20 World Cup.