Suryakumar Yadav and Gautam Gambhir’s multiple phone calls changed Sanju Samson’s career

Samson had to wait his time in the Indian shirt, but now he seems to have finally put the pieces of the puzzle together. Despite a difficult start to life under Gautam Gambhir’s tenure as head coach with some poor performances against Sri Lanka, Samson bounced back with strong performances against Bangladesh and now the Proteas.

Speaking at the post-match press conference in Durban, Samson said about how the commitment of senior members of the team helped him overcome the mental hurdle of representing India: “When you have a supportive captain like Suryakumar Yadav and Gautam.” bhai and VVS Laxman sir, they all support you during outages. The way they communicate with you about your mistakes is very important. Everyone knows that the player can get lost in a negative phase.”

“You have the confidence that…”

“At that time, I received a lot of calls from Gautam Bhai and Surya telling me what I should work on,” the wicketkeeper-batter continued. “Your spin is a bit like that. They collect all the spinners in Kerala and practice there on rough wickets. You do this, you do that. So when the captain of your Indian team calls you and tells you how to practice after a duck, you can be sure that the captain trusts you.”

“He wants you to be okay. So I think all these little, little things will play a big role when I come back here,” said Samson, who debuted for India back in 2015. The chances for Samson were slim, but now approaching his 30th birthday, Samson has found a maturity that has allowed his natural expressive play to flourish.

“I am very grateful for the trust placed in me. I think I was able to give it back to my team management. I feel like it’s just a start. “I just want to train hard, train hard, just be very grateful when I come out to play for my country and just try to contribute and win games for my country every time I come in,” concluded the captain of the Rajasthan Royals.

Samson’s century led India to a dominant 61-run win at Kingsmead and will look to repeat the trick at St George’s Park as the teams travel to Gqeberha for the second game of the series.