IPL 2020: Sanju Samson makes a stupendous start to the season, but will he be consistent?

It’s not very often that one finds former Indian captain and batting legend Sunil Gavaskar praising someone and yet, he has been consistent in lavishing praises on Sanju Samson.

The Kerala batsman, however, has been iconsistent in the Indian Premier League over the years. Every season, Sanju Samson comes up with some excellent performances by scoring heavily in at least two to three games and puts on quite a show.

As for IPL 2020, Sanju Samson came up with a special knock against the Chennai Super Kings on Tuesday night. He was at the top of his game with some breath-taking shots and treated the CSK bowlers like club cricketers.

It was a complete annihilation as the RR star played shots all over the park and did not pay heed to the slowness of the track on offer. Slow or fast, the sixes kept coming with consistent alacrity.

In the end, Samson finished with a well-deserved 74 as he smacked the CSK spinners – Piyush Chawla and Ravindra Jadeja – out of the park time and again. It was pure entertainment for the fans, millions of them who were watching the knock on their television screens.

The knock reminded one of the 102-run knock Sanju Samson scored off just 55 balls against Sunrisers Hyderabad last year. Three years before that, Samson had a similar score against the Delhi team.

However, if you look at the overall record of Sanju Samson in IPL, it isn’t that outstanding. From the time he burst into the IPL scene in 2013, he has been an average scorer as he has lacked consistency.

Can Sanju Samson continue this good run in IPL 2020?

No doubt, Sanju Samson is a batsman gifted with perfect balance and immense talent, but somehow, consistency hasn’t been his forte. The Indians selectors have always considered him to be the third wicket-keeper batsmen after KL Rahul and Rishab Pant, but this IPL could be a defining moment for Samson.

In other words, he is a much better player than what the numbers suggest. From 94 matches, Sanju Samson has scored 2283 runs at an average of 28.18 with two hundreds and 11 fifties.

While he did make quite an impact with multiple fifties in the 2018 season, otherwise, only one or two knocks have been the story of his batting so far. Will Sanju Samson be able to achieve the kind of consistency which is needed to make a breakthrough into the Indian team?

Sanju Samson has certainly made a stupendous start, and one hopes that he continues the form not only for his own sake but also to contribute in a large way to the Royals' success.

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