Rajasthan Royals skipper Sanju Samson is having his best IPL season yet as he notched up 500 runs in the ongoing edition. Even though he scored just 18 runs against the Punjab Kings on Wednesday, May 15 in Guwahati, Samson became only the second batter in IPL to score 3000 runs batting at No 3 after Suresh Raina as he notched up the feat after scoring his 10th run against Punjab. While Raina is still more than 1900 runs away, Samson too has made distance with the likes of Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers, who are No 3 and 4 on the list.
Most runs at No 3 in IPL
Suresh Raina (CSK, GL) - 4,934 runs in 171 innings
Sanju Samson (RR, DD) - 3,008 runs in 90 innings
Virat Kohli (RCB) - 2,815 runs in 93 innings
AB de Villiers (DD, RCB) - 2,188 runs in 58 innings
Manish Pandey (KKR, DC, MI, RCB, LSG, PWI, SRH) - 1,942 runs in 72 innings
Samson's performance with the bat has been one of the key reasons behind Rajasthan Royals's impressive run in the 2024 edition of the IPL apart from Riyan Parag's emergence. Yes, the Royals have suffered a hiccup in the last few matches with three successive losses, however, they still are a quality side and with playoffs confirmed, Samson would eye a 600-plus season with the T20 World Cup coming.
As far as the match is concerned, the Punjab Kings read the conditions well and the likes of Sam Curran, Nathan Ellis and Harshal Patel deployed their slower deliveries efficiently and the Royals, who wanted to post a big total after choosing to bat first, failed to read the conditions and ended up with a below-par score.
Local boy Riyan Parag did score a few in the end to take them to 140-plus but they will have to bowl out of their skins to defend that.
