Staff Writer – Archi
It’s not always easy to emerge as a hero when a hurricane named Chris Gayle is playing in your team and that too in the shortest format of the game cricket.
But Marlon Samuels belongs to the rare breed of cricketers who on their day can belittle any other player. And Sunday was Samuels’ day only.
While everyone expected Gayle to be the West Indies hero in this World T20, it was Samuels who sizzled. And not just in the final against hosts Sri Lanka on Sunday, Samuels finished as the Windies’ top run-scorer in their maiden World T20 triumph, getting 230 runs – to Gayle’s 222 – in seven games @ 38.33, and at a fabulous strike rate of 132.94.
In a campaign where Gayle hogged all the headlines, Samuels was the ‘silent assassin’, stroking three fifties and batting like a prince at No. 3. The 31-year-old matched his big Jamaican friend stroke for stroke, with few taking notice of him till that magical knock in the final.
Samuels’ story has its own romantic twist. The man who won West Indies their first World Cup in 33 years almost lost his career in 2008, when he was banned for two years for allegedly talking to Indian bookies during a match in Nagpur.
That incident pushed Samuels to the wall. He was then peaking with the bat, having just won the Windies the One-Day International in Chennai with his 98.
Reminded of those tough times on Sunday night, Samuels’ response summed up his tough character.
“My career has been up and down. There have been a lot of tough times. I dealt with them in simple ways and tried to let them pass. Being under pressure on a cricket field is nothing compared to what I’ve been through off the field. But as my mentor always told me, everything that happened to me in life is because I am important.
I’m not someone who will ever give up. I never say die,” he said. “The person that I am deep down inside is the reason why I am still here playing cricket. I have a family that believes in me. If outsiders don’t, it doesn’t really matter to me,” he outlined.
Samuels made his mark quite early and as a 19-year-old, he was unfairly compared to the great Viv Richards. He was no Richards but has shown he can bat like a free bird.
The rough patch in his life has changed the Jamaican’s take on life too. “Sometimes you are just living carefree. It takes something to happen to you to realize how precious life is. I appreciate life more now. You develop trust in God and animals.
Marlon Samuels in Sri Lanka. Photo courtesy thisisjersey.com
You don’t trust man. Anything happened to me God wanted it to happen to me. This is my story and this is my book,” he had said last year. He felt he didn’t need “a hundred friends, as new people coming into your life is very dangerous”.
He had admitted his daughter Dijona and son Dimitri had helped him change for good and it was just they who mattered to him now.
After coming back from the ban, Samuels took time to find his bearings. He refused an offer to play in the World Cup last year because he felt he wasn’t “ready for One-day cricket”.
This year, however, he has been in the form of his life, scoring heavily in England and then against the Kiwis at home. On Sunday, Samuels perhaps found his nirvana with a once-in-a-lifetime knock.
His knock was as captivating as his playing career.
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