Chennai Super Kings bowling coach Eric Simons compared Sanju Samson to MS Dhoni in terms of the calmness he brings to the setup. Samson, who arrived in CSK as part of a trade deal that saw Ravindra Jadeja and Sam Curran go to Rajasthan Royals, scored his first century in yellow against Delhi Capitals on Saturday, with his unbeaten 115 setting up the five-time IPL champions’ first win of the season.
From the time Samson made the switch, all eyes have been on him. Having come into the IPL after winning the Man of the Tournament award in the T20 World Cup, he started off on a quiet note. He had scores of 6, 7 and 9 in the three innings he played as Chennai suffered three successive defeats. However, on Saturday, he showed signs of rediscovering his old form. Though the start hasn’t been great, Simons said Samson had shown no signs of panic.
“I’ve had the privilege to spend many years playing, being involved with Dhoni, he’s one of the calmest cricketers I’ve ever come across. And Sanju Samson’s not far behind that, he just understands the game from that perspective, I’ve seen no panic, no sense of practising more, doing more, maybe even less,” Simons said in the post-match press conference.
While CSK had been training during their five-day break after losing to RCB last Sunday, Samson had briefly flown back home before regrouping with the squad.
Simons said that Samson had a lot of self-belief within him, adding that the wicketkeeper-batter’s class was never in doubt.
“When you’ve got the class of a player like him, you know it’s just temporary if you have a bad run of form and sometimes it’s about luck, he got a great delivery from (Nandre) Burger at one game, it’s just the way it goes, one ball goes for four to the boundary, he edges one, he gets caught, so there was never any doubt that this was coming and I think the mindset of a cricketer of his stature is important, you’ve just got to keep trusting him, believing in your quality and certainly he’s got that sort of an abundance,” the South African said.
