Sanju Samson: A couple of failures definitely put a lot of doubts in your mind

Sanju Samson finally made his arrival at Chennai Super Kings (CSK) count as he smashed an unbeaten 115 off just 56 balls against Delhi Capitals (DC) on Saturday, April 11, to help his side open their account. Samson's magnificent ton helped him and CSK break their respective rut after a string of underwhelming performances.

Samson batted at a strike rate of 205.35 and blasted 15 fours and four maximums. The right-handed batter stitched a 62-run stand for the opening wicket with his IPL captain, Ruturaj Gaikwad, and then added 113 runs for the second wicket alongside Ayush Mhatre before Mhatre was retired out by the team management to accelerate at the fag end of the innings.

However, Samson admitted to battling a lot of self-doubts after a string of low scores (6 vs RR, 7 vs PBKS, and 9 vs RCB) before getting the big one on Saturday.

"To be very honest, how much form you're in, however many matches you have won for your country, a couple of failures definitely put a lot of doubts in your mind," Samson said at the post-match presentation. "But I just wanted to go back and do my basics and believe in myself and just stick to my scoring patterns.

"So a lot of thoughts came. Should I go harder at the start or should I change my game plan? But I wanted to stick to what was working and luckily, it came off beautifully today."

Samson said he switched back to basics to get back to runs and credited the CSK support staff for a lot of "good" training sessions behind the scenes.

"I have failed a lot, and that tells you how you need to come back," he said. "Mentally you think about, okay, do you need to go a bit hard, or do you need to change your game plan? So the mind gets a bit here and there. So you need to bring your mind and body to the basics. I am 31 years old, and I have spent a lot of time in this sport, so I need to know what my basics are.

"My basics are to mentally get in a different zone, and also physically do your basics. As a batsman, you need to come back to timing the ball, just looking at the ball coming out of the bowler's hand, so all those things. We did some really good sessions a day before with our supporting staff, and I  am very happy things came nicely today."