India lost the 1st ODI to South Africa by a small margin of 9 runs on Thursday (October 9) at Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow and the reason why the margin was so low was one name: Sanju Samson. The star India batter smashed an unbeaten 86 to almost take India home. But no support from the other end meant India lost the match by 9 runs. He smashed 20 off the last over when the need was 30. Tabraiz Shamsi held his nerves to take Proteas men to win as South Africa clinched important ICC World Cup Super League points which they are in dire need of to qualify for 2023 mega event in India. 


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Coming back to Samson, he came in to bat at 51/4 in the 18th over of the rain-curtailed 40-over match. Samson started off slowly when Shreyas Iyer was going all guns blazing at the other end. Iyer finished with 50 off 37 balls that included 8 fours. After he fell, Samson was joined Shardul Thakur who played a good hand with 33 off 31 balls. It was then that Sanju unleashed his power-hitting and started collecting boundaries. With 70 required of 30 balls, he and Thakur began to attack on every ball. But in the 38th over by Lungi Ngigi, Thakur was dismissed by a superb catch from Keshav Maharaj and then Kuldeep Yadav too fell in the same over. The two wickets pushed India on back foot again. 


Sanju was unable to keep the strike for the 39th over and new man in Avesh Khan wasted the whole over before getting out. In the last over, India needed 30 off last 6 balls and Sanju still tried his best by hitting 1 six and 3 fours in the over respectively. But in the end, India fell short by 9 runs. 


After his superb knock, fans took to Twitter, some raving about his innings while other saying that India did a mistake by not taking him to the World Cup. 


Take a look at how fans reacted after Sanju Samson's innings: