Former Indian head coach Rahul Dravid was one of the first few coaches to spot Sanju Samson’s talent at the domestic level and gave him a platform to show his skills. Samson had his inconsistency issues throughout his career but he finally delivered at the top stage (T20 World Cup) for India.
Samson produced scores of 97(50), 89(42), and 89(46) in the virtual quarterfinals, semifinal and final of the tournament, respectively. The right-hander was awarded Player of the tournament after he scored 321 runs in five matches at an average of 80.25 and a strike rate of 199.38.
The Kerala batter batted with a lot of maturity in the last three games and played an instrumental role in taking his team to glory.
Dravid, who was bestowed with the Col. C. K. Nayudu Lifetime Achievement Award by the BCCI, said Sanju has reaped the reward for his immense hard work.
“It was really nice to see Sanju be able to get it altogether in those final three games for India. He has been in and out of the team for a long time. He has performed and then lost his spot. But he has worked so hard, and it was really good to see him get it altogether,” Dravid told Star Sports.
The former Indian captain praised head coach Gautam Gambhir and skipper Suryakumar Yadav for living up to the expectations in the tournament.
“Lovely to see the performance of the T20 side. The expectations were immense. They started as favourites. It’s never easy to begin the tournament as a favourite and go on to win the trophy. It comes with its own pressure and challenges. It was really nice to see Surya and Gautam do that,” he said.
Speaking about the growth of Indian cricket over the years, Dravid said, “It’s been phenomenal. Amazing to see how Indian cricket has grown over the decades. It always had amazing talent, good administrators and coaches. We have been able to back that with incredible infrastructure. We always had a really good domestic cricket system and junior cricket structure. And the kind of fans we have, India cricket has deserved to have success on the field.”
