Former South Africa wicketkeeper-batter and Mumbai Indians (MI) coach Mark Boucher heaped praises on Sanju Samson who scored a match-winning century in first T20I in Durban on November 8. Boucher questioned why Samson wasn't a regular in the team earlier. The wicketkeeper-batter made his debut in 2015 but in the last few months has gotten a long rope with Suryakumar Yadav as captain and Gautam Gambhir as head coach.
While Boucher questioned Aiden Markram's tactics of introducing spinners early on, he was in awe of Indian opener who scored his second T20I century.
"I think South Africa got their bowling combinations really wrong. They gave the ball to spinners early on. If you are an Indian batters, who would you rather face at the start, a spinner or a pacer. But ya, Samson, what a player. To me it is quite surprising that he has not played more games for India and this might be what he needs, just a kick on with a couple of good innings and you can see how good he is to watch," Boucher told JioCinema.
Samson scored 107 runs from 50 balls. His knock was laced with seven fours and 10 sixes. He got support from skipper Suryakumar and Tilak Varma who contributed with cameos. Despite the collapse in the slog overs, Samson's 107 helped India post 202/8 on the board and win the first T20I by 61 runs.
Skipper Suryakumar hailed Samson's intent as he looked for boundaries even when he was nearing his century.
"The amount of hard work he has put in over the last few years, doing the boring work, he is eating the fruits of that. He was in the 90s but still he was looking for a boundary, playing for the team which shows the character of the man and that's what we look for," he said in the post-match presentation.
Samson's massive record
Samson scripted history as he became the first Indian and fourth overall to score two consecutive T20I centuries. He joined Gustav McKeon, Rilee Rossouw and Phil Salt on the list. The Rajasthan Royals (RR) captain was happy with his intent in the innings.
"The intent, we have been talking about being aggressive and keeping the team ahead of yourselves. Once you play three-four balls you are looking for the boundary, I'm not thinking much, sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't, happy it worked out well today," said the 'Player of the match'.
