MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Rohit and Dravid wasted 10 years of my son's career, claims Sanju Samson's father

Sanju Samson's fatherVishwanath Samson has made heads turn with his statement on MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid. Vishwanath accused the India greatsof wasting his son's 10 precious years by not giving him a longer runat the international level (having hardly played under Dhoni, Kohli and Rohit's captaincy). The stylish right-hander made his India debut in 2015 but only since 2022, Samson has been getting a fair run in white-ball cricket. The 30-year-old's career has been marred with inconsistencies butrecently he became the first Indian to slam consecutive T20I centuries during India's ongoing four-match series versus South Africa, in the African nation.

'Dhoni, Kohli, Rohit and Draviddestroyed 10 years of my son's life'

Vishwanath,in a recent interview with a Kerala-based news outlet, Media One, said, "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," he said, stating that they had "destroyed 10 years of my son's life."

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Despite the setbacks, Vishwanath was all praise for his son and further opined,"The more they hurt him, the stronger Sanju came out of the crisis."

Vishwanath also hit back at Kris Srikkanth for belittling Sanju's achievements, particularly after he scored his maiden T20I century (against Bangladesh) last month. In this regard, he added, "What hurt me really bad was comments from [Kris] Srikkanth, the player from Tamil Nadu. He said, 'against whom did Sanju score a century? It was only Bangladesh.' Century is a century, and that guy has scored only 26 runs against Bangladesh. Sanju has scored a hundred and he is a player with a classical touch like Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid. At least respect that."

At present, Samson has been inconsistent in the four T20Is versus Proteas. He started the series with his second T20I ton, scoring a magnificent 107, butfollowed it up with two successive ducks. He will be eager to score big in the fourth and final T20I, on Friday (Nov 15) in Johannesburg. The Suryakumar Yadav-led Indian team have an unassailable 2-1 leadafter a narrow 11-run win in the penultimate tie, in Centurion, on Wednesday (Nov 13).