IPL 2017, Player Watch: Sanju Samson (DD), Century Man

Sanju Samson is steadily building a name for himself in the cricket fraternity. Mentored by Rahul Dravid, earlier at Rajasthan Royals and now with Delhi Daredevils, Samson credits all his success to Dravid. The Kerala batsman has played for Rajasthan Royals and Kolkata Knight Riders in the past, but has not always justified his rating. Bought for Rs. 4.2 crore by DD in the tenth edition of IPL, Samson has vindicated their faith in him by striking big and hard.

Samson is the third player form Kerala to don the national jersey, after Tinu Yohanan and S Sreesanth. Starting his IPL career with Rajasthan Royals, his steady performance and ability to build an innings in the middle and giving bowlers a charge towards the end of an innings merited a 2-crore base price of for him at the IPL 2017 auction.

After DD lost Aditya Tare early vs RPS, Samson and Sam Billings steadied the DD innings which in turn helped them garner their first win of the IPL 2017.

Having played only two matches in the tournament so far, Samson has scored 115 runs with a strike rate of 153.33.

As the event keeps on unfolding, it will be interesting to see Samson battle for the orange cap with the likes of AB De Villiers, Moises Henriques, David Warner and so on.

Samson has streaks of MS Dhoni in him, though he is not a natural like the former Indian captain. With the current wicket keeping crop of Parthiv Patel, Dhoni and Wriddhiman Saha not being young any more Samson may well be in line for a regular India job not too far in the future.