India discard, Kerala’s Sanju Samson gave another good account of his form as he scored 128 from 139 balls against Railways on Tuesday, in the Vijay Hazare Trophy. But despite his solid effort, Kerala lost by 18 runs, in a chase of 256. On the other hand, Yuvraj Singh, also known as Sahab Yuvraj, scored 121 for Railways, guiding his team to a fourth win in the seven matches of the tournament. This was Yuvraj’s first hundred in his List A career and now has 168 runs in six innings, in the Vijay Hazare Trophy 2023/24.
Sanju, who strung a partnership of 138 with Shreyas Gopal, hit eight fours and six maximums in his innings but was dismissed by Rahul Sharma when it mattered the most. One of the biggest reasons for Kerala’s failure on the day was, that none of the batsmen other than Sanju and Gopal got going. As many as five batsmen were dismissed in single-digit scores.
Rahul was the star of the show for Railways in bowling, returning with figures of 4/44. He was ably supported by Himanshu Sangwan, who claimed 2/62 in the match. But despite this loss, Kerala topped Group A, and qualified for the pre-quarters.
Curious Case of Sanju Samson
Despite coming up with decent performances in the limited opportunities he got, Sanju was overlooked for the ICC World Cup 2023. In the 13 ODIs he has played so far, he has scored 390 runs at an average of 55.71, with 86 as his highest. Fortunately, he got a call-up in the ODI team for the upcoming tour of South Africa.
