“Wasted 10 years of my son”

India National Cricket Team batter Sanju Samson’s father, Vishwanath, has accused MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, and Rohit Sharma of wasting 10 years of his son’s career. He made a strong statement, saying that three stalwarts of Indian cricket hurt him, but he came out with an even stronger response.

Sanju Samson’s father’s comments came after his son came up with two back-to-back centuries in the T20I cricket. The keeper-batter, who has been in and out of the Indian team, has got the new role of opening under the leadership of Suryakumar Yadav and head coach Gautam Gambhir.

Sanju Samson registers two ducks after two centuries in T20Is

Sanju Samson, although it took some time to get going in the opening role, made sure he developed himself in the role. He set the stage on fire in the last T20I against the Bangladesh National Cricket Team as he slammed his maiden T20I century and made a strong statement.

However, after that, he didn’t look back as he started the ongoing T20I series against South Africa where he left off against Bangladesh National Cricket Team. The keeper-batter came up another century and became the first India batter to hit two back-to-back centuries in T20Is.

But since the last two games, Samson has failed to maintain the consistency. The opening batter, who hit two centuries on the trot, bagged two consecutive ducks. He became the India batter with the most number of ducks in T20Is in a single year as he got out without scoring five times this year.

There are 3-4 people who wasted 10 years of my son’s vital career – Sanju Samson’s father

With Samson going through a roller-coaster ride, his father’s comments have gone viral. Vishwanath stressed that his son didn’t get opportunities under MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, and Rohit Sharma. Speaking to the Malayalam-language television channel MediaOne, he said:

“There are 3-4 people who wasted 10 years of my son’s vital career…captains like Dhoni ji, Virat [Kohli] ji, Rohit [Sharma] ji and coach [Rahul] Dravid ji. These four people wasted 10 years of my son’s life but the more they hurt him, the stronger Sanju came out of the crisis.”

Samson’s father lashed out at former India cricketer Kris Srikkanth for his comments after his son slammed ton against Bangladesh. He thrashed the former BCCI selector, saying that Sanju has a classical touch like Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid. He explained:

“What hurt me bad was comments from [Kris Srikkanth], the player from Tamil Nadu. I don’t know what he has played. To this day, that individual has not spoken a good word of encouragement about my son, but has hurt him a lot with his words.”

“He said – ‘against whom did Sanju score a century? It was only Bangladesh,’. People have been saying he [Srikkanth] was a great player but I haven’t seen it. Century is a century, and that guy has scored only 26 runs against Bangladesh. Sanju has scored a hundred and he is a player with a classical touch like Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid. At least respect that!”

With one more T20I remaining against the South Africa National Cricket Team, Sanju Samson will be having a great opportunity to make a mark.

Also Read: Watch: Sanju Samson creates unwanted record after being bamboozled by Marco Jansen in Centurion T20I