Learned more about my game this IPL season: Sanju Samson

Sanju Samson

Despite having had a fairly quiet Indian Premier League (IPL) season with the bat for Rajasthan Royals, wicketkeeper-batsman Sanju Samson has said that it was his best season yet. While Samson lit up the stage in IPL 2013 with some impressive performances and followed it up with 339 runs at an average a touch under 30 last year, the 20-year-old managed just 204 runs this time around at a paltry average of 20.40.

Samson, though, feels that he learned a lot about his game during the last two months and added that he is aware of the areas where has to improve going forward.

“I think it's a great achievement to play three consecutive seasons for Rajasthan Royals. Compared to the last two seasons, I was able to know my game better this season. Everyone in the team from the coach to the junior players know me and my game very well. They have pointed out the areas where I should improve. So far that reason I consider this season as the best,” he said.

Will also be concentrating on wicketkeeping from now: Samson

While Samson’s primary strength is his batting, he is also more than handy with the wicketkeeping gloves and stood behind the stumps for the Royals throughout their campaign. Talking about his experience, he said, “Till now I had approached the game primarily as a batsman. Even in practice, the onus was on batting. But the biggest challenge I faced in this IPL was as a wicketkeeper.

“I think I kept wickets to be best of my ability. Whenever I failed with the bat, it motivated me to give a good performance behind the stumps. From now on I will concentrating on honing my wicketkeeping skills in the practice sessions.”

When asked to compare the captaincy strengths of Shane Watson and Steven Smith, both of whom had the captaincy at different stages in the season, he observed that while Smith is inherently a more attacking and aggressive captain, Watson is a lot more calm and likes to lead from the front.

“Though both of them were Australian players their captaincy was different. Their captaincy was different from their personalities as well. Waston was a cool captain who wanted to lead the team quietly. But Smith was aggressive and he was an attacking captain. However, both of them supported me well,” Samson added.