‘I need to be a villain or joker also’: Sanju Samson compares himself to Mohanlal to explain batting order demotion | Cricket News

As the Indian team stumbled its way to scoring 168/6 against Bangladesh in a Super 4 clash on Wednesday, there was plenty of debate about Sanju Samson not getting to bat at all. With Samson in the playing XI, the Indian team management opted to promote Axar Patel up the order at No 7, where he managed to score just 10 runs in the 15 balls he faced. Before the game, Samson gave an interview with the host broadcaster, where he was asked by former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar about what he thought his best position was in the batting order. Samson gave a reference to legendary actor Mohanlal to explain his situation before calling himself “Sanju Mohanlal Samson” with a chuckle.

“There’s our actor, Mohanlal, who got a big award from the Indian government (the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, India’s highest award in the field of cinema). He has been an actor for 20, 30, 40 years. I have been playing for India for 10 years. So, I can’t come in and say ‘I only can do the hero role.’ I need to be a villain. I need to be a joker. I need to play around,” Samson told Sony Sports Network. “You can’t say that you have scored runs in the opening position and you are really good in the top three spots. I feel let me try this also. No one can say why I can’t be a good villain. Let’s see how it goes.”