Samson Vishwanath, father of Indian cricketer Sanju Samson, has made headlines with his candid remarks, attributing the delays in his son’s cricketing career to the influences of cricketing greats MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and Rahul Dravid. . Notably, Sanju made his international debut in July 2015 under Ajinkya Rahane's leadership at the Harare Sports Club. However, the latter was leading the tour in place of Dhoni, who didn't participate in the series.
Vishwanath recently poured his heart out in an interview as he expressed his frustration and disappointment at Sanju Samson having to wait for such a long time to get his fair share of chances. Vishwanath also voiced his displeasure and hit back at Kris Srikkanth after it was reported that the former India opener had downplayed his son's century against Bangladesh, questioning the quality of bowling.
"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," Vishwanath said in an interview with a Malayalam news outlet."These four people destroyed 10 years of my son's life, but the more they hurt him, the stronger Sanju came out of the crisis," he continued."People have been saying he [Srikkanth] was a great player, but I haven't seen it. A century is a century, and Sanju is a player with a classical touch like Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid. At least respect that!" Samson father's further added.
Besides, Vishwanath also did not shy away from expressing his gratitude towards the current India head coach, Gautam Gambhir, and the T20I captain, Suryakumar Yadav, for giving his son opportunities in the T20I team."I am very happy, and I want to thank Gautam Gambhir bhai and Suryakumar bhai. If these two people did not come at this time, they would have dropped him from the team like in the past," he stated. The 30-year old has played 16 ODIs and 35 T20Is so far in his career. He averages 56.67 in the 50-over format at a strike rate of 99.61. Meanwhile, in T20Is, he has an average of 25.04 with a strike rate of 151.08.