Rajasthan Royals skipper Sanju Samson boded well for his chances ahead of the T20 World Cup team selection by scoring an unbeaten 71 off 33 balls and eclipsing a similar effort from Lucknow Super Giants captain KL Rahul (76 off 48 balls). One of the most in-form teams in this IPL, Rajasthan Royals romped to a seven-wicket win on Saturday with Samson leading his troops from the front. The battle for wicketkeepers in the 2024 T20 World Cup selection remains one of the most intense, and Samson proved why he deserves to be No. 1 in that pecking order.
Samson, who hit his fourth half-century of the IPL 2024 off 28 balls, shared an unbeaten partnership of 121 runs with Dhruv Jurel, who scored his maiden IPL half-century as Rajasthan Royals cruised to 199/3 in 19 overs in response to Lucknow Super Giants' 196/5 made possible by Rahul's excellent innings and his 115-run partnership with Deepak Hooda (50).
Samson, who had scores of 82*, 69, 68* before Saturday's great knock, blasted seven boundaries and four sixes in another brilliant innings to help Rajasthan Royals recover from two quick wickets and with the help of Jurel, who scored 52 and not out off 34 balls, collected 121 runs for the fourth wicket partnership to guide RR to a comfortable win at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium.
With this win, table-topper Rajasthan Royals rose to 16 points from eight wins from nine matches, creating a large six-point gap at the top of the table. LSG remained at fourth place with 10 points, the same as Kolkata Knight Riders (2nd), Sunrisers Hyderabad (3rd) and Delhi Capitals (5th). They have played nine matches while KKR and SRH have played eight matches each. DC is done with 10 matches so far.
Best Sanju Samson celebration ever. pic.twitter.com/AfHH2PI68u
— Rajasthan Royals (@rajasthanroyals) April 27, 2024
After the match, Samson said at the post-match presentation ceremony: “I'm very lucky to be behind the wickets. There was some buying with the new ball and then there was a good wicket to bat on. The boys coming in and bowling one over in the power play does important work. There has been a lot of planning behind the scenes. The start and end of the innings were good.
“We have given away a few in the middle overs. Form is temporary in this format. We have seen Jurel in Tests. We believe in him. He has batted for an hour and two in the nets at times. We have really well done.” Well, we got a little lucky too. We have to keep the process good. During team meetings we talk about checking off the processes.
With IANS inputs
Topics mentioned in this article