Sanju Samson was ‘face’ of Rajasthan Royals, challenge for Vaibhav Suryavanshi in IPL 2026, say star cricketers

Sanju Samson was traded from Rajasthan Royals to Chennai Super Kings for a record price of Rs 18 crore ahead of IPL 2026 season.

IPL 2026: Sanju Samson is getting ready to play for only his third team in the Indian Premier League as he makes his debut for MS Dhoni’s Chennai Super Kings later this month. Samson was traded from Rajasthan Royals to CSK for a record price of Rs 18 crore last year.

Samson was part of the RR franchise for 11 years from 2013 to 2025 and only played for Delhi Capitals for a couple of years when the team was banned by the BCCI for it’s involvement in spot fixing. Former South Africa captain Faf du Plessis believes that Rajasthan Royals had become synonymous with Sanju Samson and he had become ‘face’ of the franchise in the last decade.

“If I look at the IPL and the teams, the iconic teams we see around the league, all of them have one marquee Indian player in common, someone who has been the face of the franchise for a period of time, Rohit Sharma, MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli. And Sanju Samson, for me, was that guy at Rajasthan Royals,” Faf du Plessis told JioHotstar’s ‘Game Plan – Know Your Team’ show.

“Yes, he’s of a newer generation, but he had become the face of that franchise. If I think of Rajasthan Royals, I think Sanju Samson. So, the fact that they’ve lost that face, I think, is a massive thing for the fans, for the IPL, and for the tournament, because he’s played such a big role there,” Du Plessis added.

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WORLD CHAMPION SANJU SAMSON IS HERE #Dencoming #WhistlePodu pic.twitter.com/T2SSN194Uq
— Chennai Super Kings (@ChennaiIPL) March 19, 2026

The former Royal Challengers Bengaluru captain believes that young opener Yashasvi Jaiswal will have a bigger role with the departure of Samson to CSK. “The thing with Yashasvi Jaiswal is that he’s had Sanju Samson, who has been such a huge, consistent performer within that batting line-up. So, when you have that consistency of runs from Sanju, it allows you to play your game. Now, you take that away, all of a sudden, people will look at him with more responsibility.

“And for a player like him, you don’t want him thinking about responsibility, you want him thinking, ‘I want to take the game on. I want to hit as many sixes as possible’. So there’s a learning curve that’s going to come into his career this season, ‘Am I true to the game that I’ve always played, or do I take up the senior player role to score the bulk of the runs?’ So it’ll be interesting to see how that goes. I think he’ll still play in the way that he does. It would be silly not to, because he’s such an attacking player,” Du Plessis told JioHotstar.

Samson has scored 4704 runs in 177 IPL matches till date with 3 hundreds and 26 fifties at a strike-rate of 139 till date.

‘Challenge for Vaibhav Suryavanshi is to get consistency’

Former India and Chennai Super Kings pacer Lakshmipathy Balaji believes IPL 2026 will be a big test for 14-year-old prodigy Vaibhav Suryavanshi. The Bihar youngster was retained for Rs 1.1 crore by Rajasthan Royals and became the youngest-ever centurion in IPL history with his 35-ball ton against Gujarat Titans in IPL 2026 season.

“We have seen the kind of talent Vaibhav Suryavanshi has, last season. He scored that hundred against GT, against a very good bowling attack. Of course, the second year is always going to be a kind of challenge for any player. That is where the mentorship of Kumar Sangakkara will come into play. The opposition would definitely have worked on some of his shortcomings.

“This season will be a huge opportunity and challenge for Vaibhav Suryavanshi as a youngster to get that kind of consistency. We saw that with the 175 he scored in the Under-19 final. So, of course, there is a lot of potential on the field. How he translates it in the second season is going to be crucial,” Balaji said about Suryavanshi to JioHotstar.

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The Times Of Bengal