Steady rise for Sunil Sam

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Keralite Sunil Sam had a fantastic trot on the flat wickets in Chennai this season. On a surface that mostly favoured batsmen, he scalped 35 wickets in Tamil Nadu Cricket League for the Globe Trotters Sports Club and became the only medium pacer to be placed in the top-10 wicket takers’ list.

A native of Kollam, Sunil Sam has won laurels for his hard work. He has been called for the Tamil Nadu Cricket T20 team, to play in the Syed Musthaq Ali Trophy. “This season of TNCL has been fantastic for me. Everything went fine and I am very happy with the results,” he said. The other nine players in the top-10 list were off-spinners and this added more flavour to his performance.

“The wicket we played this season was a flat one and that was favourable for batsmen. So, medium pacers didn’t have much to do, but still it was a good experience for me. This performance, coupled with the good show in two other matches, earned me the team call-up,” he said.

Sunil Sam says it was a great experience playing TNCL where a number of star-studded players such as Balaji, Ashwin, Badrinath and Dinesh Karthik were in action. “I must now improve my skills in T20. I am training hard and hope I can eclipse the performance of TNCL,” he said.

He has also crossed 30-wicket mark in the last season of TNCL. Though he was a Tamil Nadu Ranji team member, he was able to play only one match.

“The Ranji season was a miserable one for me. I did not get enough matches. However, I was able to get back to form in the league matches and got back a position in the Tamil Nadu State team,” he said.
A third-year visual communication student at Nehru College in Coimbatore, Sunil has also played for the Kollam district team. But, it was his studies in Tamil Nadu that enabled him improve his skills.