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Of all places in India, Rajasthan Royals (RR) decided to hold their pre-IPL 2024 camp in Malappuram, Kerala. Not only is it more than 2,000 kilometres away from their home ground, the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur, but being one of the biggest football hubs of India, it is as far from cricket as they come.
But you only needed to reach around 500 kilometres from it to know exactly why. At the ground there was a cut-out of the team's captain, Sanju Samson, in blazing pink, about 10 times taller and five times wider than the man himself. It was in his famous muscle-flexing pose, pulled up and pieced together on wooden logs.
At 90 degrees to it was a similarly blazing banner with text in white, reading:
"Millions of Malayalis' essence for life is RR... Driven by Samson"
The cut-out and the powerful banner were funded by the Jolly Rovers Perinthelmanna Cub and a non-governmental organisation called the Sanju Samson Fans Association (SSFA). The latter is a brainchild of Murukesh Rajan, a 28-year-old student..
He started a Facebook fan page to support Samson around 2015 which initially became popular among his friends and then, within months, was one of the largest on the platform. A WhatsApp group followed soon after, simply because it was trendy at the time, but due to the massive number of people who wanted to join in, he had to make at least half-a-dozen more.
Last year, after seeing the buzz their cut-outs and events generated, Murukesh and friends felt there was a need to 'formalise' their activities. On November 13, they registered a non-government society under The Travancore Cochin Literary, Scientific And Charitable Societies Registration Act (1955) in Kollam.
This company now has an official registration number, a treasurer (Murukesh), a president, a vice-president and a few other members. The members often pool money and sometimes ask for contributions from WhatsApp group members to organise fan-parks, competitions, charity events on Samson's birthday and so on.
The answers to the questions like, "Why?", "Why him? He's not Kohli, Dhoni or Rohit!" that must be blazing in your mind right now are both simple and complex.
Different but same
For starters, there are a myriad Samson stories floating around in Kerala. Whether it's a reporter asking him about the technicalities of his game and getting a, "I just look to smash the ball" with a straight face, him taking out time to play with a fan with special needs, or an engineer simply discussing his college life with him.
"Everybody can relate to him. He's like the kid next door. Anybody can go up and talk to him. He'd immediately make you feel welcome," Biju George, Samson's childhood coach, and a Steadfast Nutrition athelete, told Sportskeeda in a chat.
His father, Samson Viswanath, a former police constable at Delhi Police, gave up his post in 2008 because his son was selected in Kerala's Under-13 team.
For 15 years he trained at concrete pitches in Trivandrum under George, travelling 30 kilometres one-way from his home to the ground to school and back again on city bus or triple-riding with his father and brother on their CBZ Honda.
They bought a WagonR during his under-16 days but couldn't pay off the loan so had to give it in. For Samson, taking success for granted was never in question.
"There was something very different about him in the way he was very purposeful, very bashful but he'd never raise his voice, very quiet. And he was totally disciplined and dedicated to whatever he was doing," George added.
Those who saw his journey, got attached immediately. It was so easy to see him as an inspiration. Even his former teammates, who were his competitors at most levels, can't help but root for him due to the kind of impressions he made on them.
"Number 3 is the position where Sanju usually wants to bat, and that is actually the place where you can keep him in any format. But [from his under-13 days] if a particular person was not getting any form going... and if Sanju had some kind of a say in a particular match... he will actually sacrifice his own position for that person," Rahul Raghavan, one of Samson's closest friends and childhood teammate told Sportskeeda.
Raghavan said the humility has remained the same even though he's currently the longest serving captain in IPL and has scored a hundred for India.
He added that Samson has even retained his "TEAM = Total Exposure of All Members" philosophy and he wouldn't mind if the national selectors chose someone else over him for the 2024 T20 World Cup as long as India does well.
Moreover, Raghavan said Samson's relentless focus on the game and an indifference towards complaining on social media about selections stands out for the fans too.
"MS Dhoni has a quote which I just remembered, something like, 'People focus on what blue tick you have, how many likes you have, how many followers you have but that's probably not what you want. If you focus on what you want, everything comes into your place.' And that’s exactly what Sanju believes in; he is a subset of MS Dhoni."
A lot of credit for that goes to George's coaching too.
"The way we trained we made sure that everything was about the game and [that he knew] the game has given him everything and not the other way around," George said. "Today you are a hero, tomorrow you can be zero. People have already forgotten Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev ['s contributions]. [Sachin] Tendulkar is on the way to be forgotten. Every year, every day throws forth new icons. It is for you to decide what you want to be remembered as. And he has pulled that value in himself very, very well."
However, even if we believe that there are some similarities in Dhoni and Samson's principles, the latter hasn't played even 1/10th of matches compared to the former. Still, his cult popularity has grown exponentially wider than just family members, close friends, and early acquaintances over the last few years.
#JusticeforSanjuSamson or #BCCIHatesSanjuSamson are common and quick social media trends whenever his name is missing from a team. You see that and the first thing that comes to mind is it's all a PR or Public Relations game.
"Even when we see these trends we think and ask ourselves, which PR agency is behind it to have created such a big buzz?" an athlete manager experienced in PR told Sportskeeda on the condition of anonymity. "But there isn't any PR doing this. It's more about the state that he's coming from."
Kerala power
Kerala has been historically supportive for most urban and rural sports. Christian missionaries brought a culture of annual sporting contests, while the football madness is said to have anti-imperialistic roots.
"I think a system is also in place to a certain extent," Dr. Anil Ramachandran, a professor and sports psychology researcher at the Kannur University in Wayanad, said. "The policies of the government, the renewal of sports policies from time to time, bringing in formal reports of how to channelize sporting talents -- not many states have done that... people work in those areas. It's not just left to chance... I think that also gives a hype for people who are passionate about sports."
Dr. Ramachandran said sports also follows the pattern of people's search for a 'role-model' which is tangible in other areas like cinema, politics and even religion.
"Keralites are very emotional people. If they love someone, they’ll do anything for them. Football has been in the blood of the people here and they have always had ideals to look upon. Even in cricket, we had Sreesanth and Tinu Yohannan but Sanju is the first batter so he’s just the heartbeat," Liju Joseph, a professional in the ministry of Kuwait and the president of the SSFA, said.
Yohannan, a medium pacer, played six matches for India. Sreesanth, also a fast bowler, was more successful and the first world-class cricketer to come from the state but, wherever he went controversy followed, culminating in his ban in 2013.
In Samson, Kerala saw not only a successful cricketer but also a son they could love without worrying about his off-field image. And that shows in how protective they are for him.
“We don’t want to spoil his name," Joseph said when asked about SSFA's membership. "We don’t want to do any damage to our Sanju. If some fan goes out and does something nasty, the media will say, ‘A Sanju fan did this’. We just want to strictly make sure we include die-hard fans only."
And given it's Malayalis, you see the same love travelling to Ireland, Australia, the UAE and wherever Samson might be playing cricket.
"People from Kerala are all over the world," Raghavan said. "We usually say, 'Ningal evide poyalum oru malayaliye kaanam' (In every corner of the world there will be a Malayali). It's kind of in our genes".
He believes that, thanks to RR and Samson's understanding of Delhi and parts of North India due to his roots, his fanfare has transcended the language barrier too.
“When we announced that we have registered a company, my WhatsApp got stuck with the number of messages I got saying, ‘How can I join?', " Joseph said. "Not just Kerala, the messages came from other parts of India too — from North India, from Andhra, from Tamil Nadu. It went to the Rajasthan Royals fan pages too so people from there also texted.”
Who knows, the proverb might soon change to, Evide poyaalum oru Samson aaraadhakane kaanam (in every corner of the world there will be a Samson fan).
Samson by nature
In a recent interview with Star Sports, Samson spoke about how while growing up he felt the need to stand-out to have a chance at representing India and how that shaped his mindset to play aggressive and intentful cricket.
During the interviews for this piece, George, Raghavan and Joseph unpromptedly spoke about how that exhilarating style gave them a sense of enrichment, love and thrill. A bit like his name, at the very heart of his popularity is this innate ability to lighten up people's days and give them joy.
"You have to have something to look forward to," George said. "Life is very grey. You need something sparkling to look up to right? And we have had very little of that in Kerala. There was PT Usha for a long time and then there is Sanju Samson."
