Rajasthan Royals scored an impressive 216/7 against Chennai Super Kings in an IPL encounter in Sharjah on Tuesday.
Sanju Samson smashed 74 off 32 balls while skipper Steve Smith scored 69 off 47 balls. Jofra Archer then clobbered 27 off 8 balls with four sixes off Lungi Ngidi’s final over that yielded 30 runs.
The man who set it up for RR, though, was Samson. He attacked with rare relish and hit as many as nine sixes in his knock – each one of them showing just how clean a striker of the ball he is.
Against the spinners, Samson hit seven sixes and no four. According to CricViz, that is the most number of sixes ever hit against spin without hitting a four in IPL history.
Samson made the most of the short boundaries but there was no slogging involved. This was clean striking of the highest order.
During the innings break, Samson said that this was not a great wicket for batting: “I had a really good time in the middle. I hope we win this. No, it wasn’t a good wicket. I had to wait for the ball. It is slow. When they bowled the right length, it was difficult to hit.”
Well, enough said. Time to buckle down and watch each of those nine sixes: