It was a fairytale evening or rather night for wicket keeper-batter Sanju Samson when he led India to an emphatic 61 runs victory over South Africa in the first T20I in Durban. Following this triumph, India leads the four-match series by one game to zero. Samson played an astonishing innings of 107 runs from only 50 balls and thus, helped India reach 202/8 in the allotted 20 overs. Subsequently, the home side bowled out the South Afriacans for 141 runs, thereby winning the match. Thus, with that match winning ton, Samson was able to also maintain his record as the only Indian batter to ever score centuries in consecutive T20I matches as he scored a hundred previously against Bangladesh in his last T20I game as well.
Commenting on the match later, South African captain Aiden Markram was quite complimentary about Samson’s performance.
“We wanted to get off to a better start and that is where we lost the game. Sanju played incredibly well, put our bowlers under pressure, and has plans to negate him and better plans will help us going forward. Once he is striking like that, it’s pretty hard to stop and you take your hat off to him,” Markram said during the post-match presentation.
“We had a couple of meetings today with who were bowling the death overs, I am incredibly proud with the two (Coetzee and Jansen) and a really big positive for us tonight. [on plans for the next game] From an individual point of view they will understand where they can get better and then meet as a batting and bowling group, you don’t fix it in the nets, it’s more about the approach and tactical point of view,” he added.
Due to the retirements of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma from T20I cricket, two positions have been vacated in the Indian top-order in the shortest format of the game. Promisingly, at the peripheries of the XI before, Samson has made good use of this opportunity almost on a permanent basis owing to his constant contributions in the shortest format.
Team India will once again tussle against the Proteas on Sunday in Gqeberha.
