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Sanju Samson, the Indian wicketkeeper-batter, admires Rohit Sharma as his idol.
Sanju Samson with Rohit Sharma
India’s ODI captain, Rohit Sharma, may no longer feature regularly across all three formats, but the legacy he has built remains a source of admiration and inspiration. He has called time on his Test and T20I careers, focusing solely now on the ODI World Cup 2027. However, he is still missed by many, not just those outside the Indian dressing room, but also within it.
Sanju Samson, the Indian wicketkeeper-batter, admires Rohit as his idol. The Kerala cricketer recently appeared in a podcast with former Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, where he said he idolised Rohit.
On the show, Ashwin asked, “(Who is) Your all-time cricketing idol, and one modern player that you get excited to watch, as a fan?”
Sanju replied, “That’s a big question. Uh… Rohit Sharma.”
Speaking about the modern-day player he gets excited to watch, Samson named ‘Chinna Paiyan’ Vaibhav Suryavanshi.
The 14-year-old opening batter made his IPL debut earlier this year, replacing an injured Samson in the Rajasthan Royals line-up. He quickly rose to fame with his extraordinary strokeplay and a sizzling century against the Gujarat Titans, becoming the youngest ever to do so in the league’s history. He played 7 games in IPL 2025 and scored 252 runs, averaging 36.
Samson recalled how once he saw the 14-year-old hit a six and thought to himself that the ‘little guy got lucky’, and it didn’t take long for him to understand that it was far from luck.
“Yeah, I saw him hit one for a six. I was thinking that the little guy got lucky, but it kept on going. The quality of the shots also really shocked me,” Samson admitted to Ravichandran Ashwin on the latter’s YouTube show, Kutti Stories With Ash.
And Samson and Ashwin weren’t the only players in awe either.
“I saw Jos Buttler talking to Jofra Archer about it. About how it was to get smashed around by a 14-year-old in the nets,” Ashwin said.
A cricket enthusiast whose dreams of playing for India paved the way for a compelling journey in journalism. With a comprehensive coverage spanning international and domestic cricket across formats, I have had …Read More
A cricket enthusiast whose dreams of playing for India paved the way for a compelling journey in journalism. With a comprehensive coverage spanning international and domestic cricket across formats, I have had … Read More
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