KOCHI: Yet to celebrate his 15th birthday, Sanju Vishwanath Samson has become the youngest ever cricketer to be selected to play for Kerala in the Ranji Trophy.
With the selectors naming the hard-hitting right-hander on Saturday in the 15-member team captained by S Sreesanth, the promise of a genuine batsman from the state finding a place in Team India has taken wings. The youngster, hailing from Pulluvila in Thiruvananthapuram, amassed tons of runs at the junior level prompting the Kolkata Knight Riders to name him in its pool of 56 players prior to the second edition of the Indian Premier League earlier this season.
“He is our best bet to make it to the Indian team as a genuine batsman,” Kerala Cricket Association secretary T C Mathew told Express. A wicketkeeper cum batsman, Sanju has scored 498 runs at an average of 62.25, including two centuries and two fifties, to go with 11 catches in the 2008-09 Vijay Merchant Trophy under-15 tournament last season. The year before he had tallied 973 runs in 5 matches at an average of 108.11, including four centuries and three fifties, in the KSCA Inter- State under-13 tournament to bag the player of the tournament award.
In July this year, the teenager created another first in the history of Kerala cricket when he was selected to train in the under-16 national camp at the National Cricket Academy, Bangalore.
The prodigy impressed all in the Hanumant Singh Trophy under-16 tournament in Bangalore paving his way to the national camp. Giving a glimpse of what he can achieve at the senior level, the gifted cricketer held his own against the likes of Pragyan Ojha scoring 27 runs off 79 balls in a losing cause against a Hyderabad Cricket Association XI in the Moi-ud-Dowlah Trophy tournament in September. Currently rated number two nationally at the under-16 level, Sanju is preparing to play for Kerala in an under-22 plate group ‘A’ match against Madhya Pradesh at Indore on October 12.