In Kerala, where parents want their children to be doctors, engineers or IT professionals, Sanju V Samson has not only bucked the trend but inspired many parents and children to go the cricket way. V Jayaraj tells you more
The decisive moment in Sanju Viswanath Samson’s career came this April 29, when his team Rajasthan Royals was chasing a target of 172, set by Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Sawai Man Singh Stadium in Jaipur. It was indeed a tough target in a T20 match especially when one considers the kind of attack Challengers put up against Royals batsmen. Royals skipper Rahul Dravid had already decided to send in the Kerala teenager, aged just 18 years and 169 days that day, to bat at No 3. In the distant coastal village of Vizhinjam, Thiruvananthapuram, his family, relatives, friends and well-wishers spent anxious moments in prayers.
TC Mathew, secretary, Kerala Cricket Association, would later say that there was no reason to be anxious, at least for him, as he knew the “boy could do it and would do it”. His body language proved that Sanju, who began playing cricket when he was just four years old on a Delhi by-lane along with his brother Saly, was not at all tense. He just went in and batted, a performance which forced Kerala coach P Ranganathan to compare him with none less than MS Dhoni. Sanju scored 63 runs off just 41 balls and built a partnership of 68 runs from 46 balls with Shane Watson, writing a new IPl record by becoming the youngest player to score an IPl half-century and becoming the Man of the Match. That performance was enough to ensure the Royals victory.
“While watching Sanju play, you would never say he is a youngster. It is such class, mature cricket he is playing. He is cool on the crease, composed and confident. I’d compare him to Dhoni and I am sure one day he would justify my impertinence in making this comparison,” says Ranganathan. “I compare him to Dhoni also because of his position as a keeper-batsman. He is one of the safest keepers in present-day India,” he adds. His performance as Royals keeper at the IPl match against Kings XI Punjab – in which he debuted – stands testimony to this. Sanju was called in to guard the wickets as regular keeper Dishant Yagnik was forced to take a day off because of an injury. He proved his mettle as keeper by impressing all with a great catch that removed Rajagopal Sathish off the ball of James Faulkner.
“Then you saw the other side of the boy when he was called in to bat at the middle by joining Ajinkya Rahane just when the Royals were struggling at 79 for four after 12 overs and five balls. That was the first time I saw how cool and composed Sanju could be in moments of tension, just like Dhoni would act in such situations. He just went through it, like an ice-cold professional,” Ranganathan recalls. Sanju made 27 runs off 23 balls and made an unbroken 47–run partnership with Rahane. Royals won the match in 19.4 overs.
“Were you tense, nervousIJ” I ask Sanju. “Not at all. I was very confident,” he tells me over the phone from Bangalore, where he is preparing to get into the under-19 Indian team for Australia trip. Ranganathan says Sanju deserves to be the captain of that team.
A father more different
In Kerala, a state where parents normally want their children to be doctors, engineers or IT professionals, where parents do not like to see their sons and daughters “wasting” time on sporting tracks and fields taking time off their academic textbooks, Samson Viswanath, father of Sanju, is different. “I was always there for them. Sanju and Saly (18 months elder to the Royals star) had showed clear signs of their will to excel in cricket when they were little kids. I was then a footballer working with the Delhi Police in the Capital. I bought bats and pads and tennis balls for them, encouraged them to play cricket, and even spent money to send them to a good academy,” says Sanju’s father, now settled with the family in Vizhinjam.
“We returned to Kerala five years back but I ensured that the boys continued to pursue cricket,” he says and then adds with a tinge of pride, “Oh, yes, Saly is a very good cricketer, an excellent all-rounder.” Saly, for his part, is the proud brother of a great cricketer, Sanju, when he says, “He is mature enough to understand his responsibilities. He can play at any number and he can play all versions of cricket, not just the quick T20s.” The maturity of which Saly, who plays for the under-25 Kerala team, speaks of gets reflected in Sanju’s own words: “There are no short-cuts in life and career. It is hard work and confidence that matter. ‘Games’ won’t take you anywhere.” Mature words indeed from a cricketer who has led himself to responsibility at the age of 18.
It is not just on the crease and behind the wickets Sanju has been showing his maturity and responsibility. His academic record is a fitting answer to the doubts of normal Kerala parents who feel that playing could affect studies. When the plus two exam results were published last month, Sanju had passed it decently, scoring an A+ in Hindi, A in English and good grades in his Commerce group mains. Mother liji was relieved. “Our son was not getting enough time for studying. He could rarely attend the classes. We used to take printouts and photocopies of the notes from his classmates. He would study them during his rest periods and cricket journeys,” says liji.
Awards and Rewards
The matches against Royal Challengers and Kings XI were not the only memorable matches as far as Sanju’s IPl performance is concerned. He won the Young Player of the Season Award for IPl 2013. He had won the Naya Soch award in his fourth IPl match for Royals against the Pune Warriors. His 47 runs off 33 balls leading to a 76-run partnership with Rahane was praised much by the analysts. However, there were certain lows for him in IPl this year as we saw it in the match against Chennai Super Kings in Jaipur on May 12 when he could not even open the account after going in at No 4. Against Mumbai Indians on May 15, he could score only four runs while his contribution to the Royals kitty against Sunrisers on May 17 was just five runs. “But you don’t judge a batsman’s mettle by such occasional lows. He is powerful and confident and full of determination as we have seen already. Even Gawaskar and Tendulkar have had their lows,” says Venkiteswaran of a cricket club in Kochi, already a fan of Sanju.
Indeed, it was the IPl which gave Sanju the kind of exposure he deserved and catapulted him to instant fame but that was not the only arena where he has proved his prowess. Immediately after the Samsons settled in Thiruvananthapuram, Sanju became a member of the Kerala under-13 cricket team, captaining it and starting his class cricket career by scoring a brilliant century in the debut match itself in the South Zone tournament. In five matches, he hit four centuries! That performance and the unrelenting hard practice brought him captaincy of the under-16 and under-19 State cricket teams. He scored a 200-not-out off 138 balls against Goa in a South Zone match as a member of the Kerala under-16 team. Sanju, who made his debut in Kerala Ranji Trophy team in November, 2011, became the youngest man to represent the State in first class cricket. His bat produced 722 runs, including two centuries, from 10 innings in the 2012-2013 domestic season!
Graduation of a cricketer
“But the cementing of my trust in him as a cricketer happened with this year’s Ranji when he scored a brilliant century against Himachal Pradesh, enabling us to draw the match with them, which was a rare achievement. Though I was certain even earlier that Sanju was world class cricket material, it was at that moment, I began to trust my trust,” says KCA secretary Mathew. “And then there was this match in South Africa. It was there where Sanju had actually graduated into world class cricket. He put up a great show against their provincial side in which even their national players were included,” Mathew recalls.
Sanju was a member of the Kolkata Knight Riders players’ pool in 2012 when a Malayalam newspaper published an eight-column flier story on him on the sports page with headline: “Here comes Knight Rider Sanju Samson”. “He reached the dugout but did not get the chance to play. But that was when the eyes of the IPl auctioneers really fell on him. That was good for him,” said a former official of KCA.
Mathew, never known as a great admirer of S Sreesanth, however, gives part of the credit to him for Sanju’s entry into the Rajasthan Royals team. “But KCA had played a very big role in his advent to fame and world class performance. We had recently come to a decision — much to the dislike of the traditionalists in cricket — to promote youngsters to national cricket with programmes that helped them to graduate in the game. You cannot get great results from a man after he plays for 12-15 years continuously. The judgement can happen in just four-five years. That is what happened in Sanju’s case,” claims Mathew.
Cricket officials in Kerala say that Sanju had ended a long drought felt in the State for batsmen of national standards. We have had several class bowlers some of whom even made into the Indian team and had performed well, like Sreesanth and Tinu Yohannan. But we were lacking in batsmen of that standard. We have got one now,” said a KCA official who did not want his name to appear in print. “Sanju has become an inspiration and role model for several boys in our rolls and are playing promising cricket. This did not happen just like that. It happened also because of our hard work and well-planned graduation schemes,” he added. Sanju agrees with that claim.
Clear aims
“There could be official claims, media evaluations, etc but what matters when you walk up that small patch in the middle of the grass, you are a lone soldier whose life depends on determination, confidence, training and prayers. You don’t see the fanfare, you don’t hear the cheers. It is you, and your companion standing on the other side, surrounded by the enemy army with the bowler advancing on to you to attack. Sanju has proved he is a great soldier if cricket is a war. But he has several more wars ahead to win,” says Babu P, a retired club cricketer from Thrissur who used to play in the same positions as Sanju’s.
Sanju, working hard for inclusion in the under-19 Indian team for Australia tour this season, is fully aware of this. “It is hard work that matters most and not gimmicks,” he tells you. There are many international cricketers whom he sees as role models but most prominent among them is his RR skipper Rahul Dravid. “Not even in the wildest of my dreams had I ever hoped to meet Dravid Sir. I just could not believe that I was playing with him, under him and taking instructions and advices from him directly. That was such a magical experience,” Sanju says in an emotion-choked voice.