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His may not have been a match-winning score, but Sanju Samson (82 off 57 balls) stole the show with his exquisite batting during the Indian Premier League match against SunRisers Hyderabad on Monday, September 27, 2021.
Samson put on a display of top-class batting as he played intelligently. He punished the balls that were needed to be hit while being content with singles or dots when need be.
Samson's stay at the crease commenced with a maiden -- off the bowling of Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the second over of the day. But the ratio of dot balls to big hits in Samson's innings was only widened as the innings progressed.
Samson found the boundaries at ease almost every over. There was the well-timed drive through the covers, smashes to the boundary over the infield and shots on the on side. His elegant shot-making inducing words of praise from legend Sunil Gavaskar in the commentary box!.
While batting aggressively, Samson also rotated the strike running the singles and twos. But he was brutal in the 16th over as he took on Sid Kaul, smashed him for 20 runs and complete three milestones in the over -- got to his fifty, logged 400 runs in IPL 2021 and recorded 3,000 runs in the IPL.
Kaul got his revenge and dismissed Samson in the final over, but Samson had player of the match written all over his innings.
Samson now has the orange cap having scored 433 runs from 10 games at an average of 54.12 with one hundred and two fifties in IPL 2021.