Kerala:India wicketkeeper batter Sanju Samson’s father Vishwanath Samson has come up with strong allegations against some of the big names in Indian cricket for destroying 10 years of his son’s career. Vishwanath has accused MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid of not giving Sanju consistent opportunities on the international stage. Samson is currently playing against South Africa in the T20I series and he started the series with a century but followed it up with two ducks.
In an interview with a Kerala-based news outlet, Media One, Vishwanath expressed his disappointment over Samson not getting enough opportunities.
"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," he said, adding that they had "destroyed 10 years of my son's life."
"The more they hurt him, the stronger Sanju came out of the crisis."
Vishwanath also expressed his dissatisfaction with former chief selector Kris Srikkanth's criticism following Sanju’s hundred against Bangladesh last month. Srikknath had reportedly downplayed the achievement by questioning the opponent’s strength against which he was playing.
"What hurt me really bad was comments from [Kris] Srikkanth, the player from Tamil Nadu. 'against whom did Sanju score a century? It was only Bangladesh. A 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."
Samson has amassed 701 T20I runs so far with an average of 24.17 and a strike rate of 150.42. Also, he has scored 510 ODI runs with a strike rate of 99.60.
