Sanju Samson strikes back with back-to-back half-centuries in SMAT 2023 after World Cup snub

After the World Cup snub despite a decent ODI record, Sanju Samson has again made a statement by scoring a consecutive fifty against Odisha playing for Kerala in the ongoing Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. Sanju Samson had a stellar ODI record in the past year with an average of more than 50 in the longest white-ball format. But an average West Indies tour at a crucial junction ended Samson’s World Cup dreams.

Sanju Samson has been the talk of social media given the huge fan base this talented batsman from Kerala enjoys and his omission from the World Cup sparked a debate among Cricket fans all over India. But given all the buzz around him, Sanju Samson has always remained silent and tried to answer everyone from his bat and this he again proved by smashing two consecutive half-centuries in India’s premier domestic T20 tournament.

Sanju’s second half-century of the tournament came against Odisha where he scored a scintillating 55 runs in just 31 deliveries at the DY Patil Stadium of Navi Mumbai. Sanju came to the crease in the 12 over of the first innings when Kerala was hovering at 90 for 2 and from thereon he took his team to a decent total of 183 for 4 after the 20 overs. He smashed 4 boundaries and the same number of sixes in his innings of 55 runs.

Sanju’s innings came at the back of another half-century against Chandigarh where he scored 52 runs of just 32 deliveries and hit 4 boundaries and 3 sixes in this process. After the initial two failures in his first two matches of the tournament, Sanju Samson has come back strongly and has lived up to his potential since then.

Curious Case of Sanju Samson

Termed a batting prodigy in his initial days Sanju Samson took the cricketing world by storm with his immaculate technique and diverse range of strokes but since then he hasn’t been able to live up to his talent and has been inconsistent with his performances in both International Cricket and the IPL.

But lately, the wicketkeeper batsmen have been more consistent with his performances on the international stage. He is now a regular feature of the Indian T20 team and has performed quite well in ODIs too in the limited opportunities he has been given so far. Sanju Samson was considered a serious contender for the wicketkeeper slot in the World Cup but given KL Rahul’s experience and decent performances in the ODI format and Ishan Kishan’s left-hand batting dimension resulted in Samson’s ouster from India’s World Cup squad.