There's a reason why Rajasthan Royals skipper Sanju Samson is seen by his fans as the ideal successor to MS Dhoni. With his superlative performance in the match against defending champions Gujarat Titans, Samson produced a brilliant knock of 60 runs off 32 balls. Together with Shimron Hetmyer, the two guided Royals to a 3-wicket win against the Titans. However, other than his batting ability, Samson also showed terrific composure on the field, especially when it looked like GT skipper Hardik Pandya was trying to get into his head.
Hardik, who knows every trick in the hat, looked to have attempted to sledge Samson hoping to get under his skin and get him out early. However, Samson casually foiled Hardik's attempt and moved away from the possible duel. Later, the RR skipper channeled his aggression into his batting and produced some luscious blows with the bat.
Here's the video of Samson-Hardik's intense moment on the field:
After the match, Hardik admitted that he didn't expect his team to lose the match, especially after the sort of powerplay they had, picking up the wickets of both openers, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Jos Buttler.
"To be honest no (didn't expect the loss after the powerplay), but that's the beauty about this game. The game is never over till it's over, another lesson for us. He's someone who's difficult to pick, got us the big breakthrough but the other bowlers didn't execute. The body is good, everything is good.
"It's a very long tournament. A lot of matches left, and we still need to play a lot of group cricket even if we had won today. (On Gujarat's score) I felt short. After I got out, they bowled a couple of good overs, but we should have gone a little harder and got to 200. We did cover it well but when I was watching from outside, I did feel that we were 10 runs may be short," he said at the presentation ceremony.
With their second successive loss at home, Gujarat are placed third in the IPL 2023 standings.