‘Destined for it’: Samson’s long-time mentor relives journey from first Rajasthan Royals nets to T20 World Cup glory

Sanju Samson has been among the most talked about players ahead of the 19th season of the Indian Premier League, which gets underway less than a week from now. Samson, after all, was involved in one of the biggest trades in the history of the Indian Premier League in November when Chennai Super Kings welcomed him on board in exchange for two world-class all-rounders in Ravindra Jadeja and Sam Curran.

A little over three months after that deal, Samson would finally deliver the kind of match-winning performances on the big stage that was expected of a player of his incredible talent all these years, but had somehow eluded him for so long.

Samson, after all, had delivered a hat-trick of match-winning performances in the business end of the T20 World Cup. Performances that played a key role in the Suryakumar Yadav-led Indian team's historic triumph on home soil and helped him win the 'Player of the Tournament' award despite being left out of the playing XI for a considerable part of the campaign.

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Few individuals know CSK's latest recruit better than Zubin Bharucha, an ex-Mumbai batter who has been associated with the Rajasthan Royals since the inaugural IPL season in 2008, currently in the role of Director of High Performance.

'There was purity in timing a ball few in world cricket have'

Samson had begun his IPL journey with the Royals in 2013, back when future India head coach Rahul Dravid was still an active cricketer and leading the side at the time. And he would remain an integral member of the franchise for more than a decade thereafter, barring a couple of seasons with Delhi Capitals (then Delhi Daredevils), leading RR into the final of the 2022 edition.

Bharucha, for one, knew he was looking at an individual with the makings of a star from the time he first laid eyes on the wicketkeeper-batter from Kerala during a practice session at Jaipur's Sawai Mansingh Stadium – the Royals' home venue.

"For me that which you cannot comprehend is often termed as genius. Doesn’t this feeling often appear when you watch Sanju bat? When in full flow what he does seems impossible to even the most talented of players. This was visible from the first ball I saw him play. It was a six over mid-wicket against a fast bowler in the nets at the SMS stadium in Jaipur, with the ball landing on the tin roof of the indoor facility with a loud bang," Bharucha, who had also briefly served as RR's head coach, said in an exclusive conversation on First Sports.

"There was purity in timing a ball few in world cricket have and I don’t mean currently, I mean in the history of our sport. It’s the way the ball leaves the bat, you cannot teach this, you either have it or you don’t. It starts with a long and unending back-lift that creates this unique and special ingredient called time, once again only the very greatest seem to posses this," he continued.

It was that purity in timing that Bharucha felt was evident in Samson's game during the knockout phase of the T20 World Cup, from the virtual quarter-final against the West Indies in Kolkata to the final against New Zealand in Ahmedabad. And especially against Jofra Archer in the semi-final in Mumbai.

"The first ball of the semi-finals against England being evidence, as Archer charged away to produce a rocket at some 145-plus and it was merely tapped away with ease to short third man. Who possesses this kind of time? He was in. He was set. There was nothing more to do, than stay the course.

"A moment that was his and he had been destined for it. Like something larger than Sanju was operating through him. The body and the mind being used in the service of something far greater," he continued, reflecting on Samson's dream run towards the end of the World Cup.

'A complex human being fighting a slew of contradictions'

It wasn't a smooth sailing for Samson in international cricket though, with the keeper-captain struggling to hold on to a spot in India's limited-overs teams for years after making his debut in 2015, and only becoming a regular part of the T20I XI in 2024 after Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli's retirements from the format. And despite slamming three centuries for India in the format thereafter, Samson wasn't an automatic starter heading into the T20 World Cup.

According to Bharucha, who perhaps knows the 31-year-old better than anyone else outside of his family perhaps, Samson's past inconsistency at the international level was the result of dealing with contradictions both on and off the field.

"The Japanese call Wabi Sabi the art of honouring the beauty in imperfection. Sanju is far from perfect, he is a complex human being fighting a slew of contradictions both on and off the field. His humane instincts are all about serving people and putting people first and yet he is playing an extremely competitive sport that requires him to fight his character and put himself first.

"With this kind of juxtaposition between two concepts constantly contradicting each other for space in his head there is bound to be conflict and tension," the 56-year-old continued.

Sanju Samson, the Player of the Tournament, performs a lap of honour around Ahmedabad's Narendra Modi Stadium following India's dominant victory over New Zealand in the final of the T20 World Cup. AFP

Bharucha added that when it came to Samson, it wasn't just consistency that mattered. His role was to also deliver match-winning performances in crunch games, something that he illustrated perfectly recently.

"T20 (and the IPL as well) reminds one of RW Emerson’s essay Self Reliance where he talks about how consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds - where it’s treated as a limiting factor in growth. You don’t aspire to be consistent, merely brilliant. T20 cricket, the IPL and Sanju Samson mirror this perfectly.

"You don’t need to be consistent in the IPL, your role is to win your team two/three games on your own. If you do that you are worth your weight in gold. Similarly in the World Cup, your role is to win your team two games of cricket on your own. As long as there is a player in your team who stands up to that on the day, you are winning games of T20, regardless of form or consistency," Bharucha concluded.

Having starred in pink and blue kits all his career, Samson will be hoping for a similar run in CSK's iconic yellow when IPL 2026 gets rolling later this week.