NEW DELHI: Rajasthan Royals captain Sanju Samson expresses his continued emotional attachment to former teammate Jos Buttler and wishes to abolish the IPL’s player release regulation. The pair, who opened batting together for seven years, parted ways when the team chose not to retain Buttler before the previous year’s mega auction.
Buttler is set to represent Gujarat Titans in the upcoming IPL season.
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“The IPL gives you the opportunity to lead a team and play at the highest level, and it also allows you to build close friendships,” Samson told Jiostar.
“Jos Buttler is one of my closest friends. We played together for seven years. During this time, our batting partnership time itself is so long that we got to know each other so well.
“He has been like an elder brother to me. Whenever I had a doubt, I would talk to him. When I became captain [in 2021], he was my vice-captain and helped me become a good captain.”
Samson describes releasing Buttler as amongst his most difficult decisions. The team retained six players: Samson, Yashavi Jaiswal, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, Shimron Hetmyer and Sandeep Sharma.
“Letting him go has been one of the most challenging decisions for me. During the England series, I told him over dinner that I was still not over it. If I could change one thing in the IPL, I would change the rule of releasing players every three years,” he said.
“While it has its positives, on a personal level, you lose that connect, that relation you built over years. He was a part of the family. What more can I say?”
Despite Buttler’s absence from the Royals’ dugout, Samson is pleased about working again with head coach Rahul Dravid.
“Rahul sir was the one who spotted me from the trials. He came up to me and said, ‘Can you play for my team?’ From there to now, with me being the captain of the franchise and him coming back – I’m very grateful, as we all are in the franchise, to have Rahul sir back,” he said.
“I have played under him [at RR] as a player when he was the captain and I have played under him in the Indian team when he was the coach. But a captain-coach relationship is very special and I’m very much looking forward to learning a lot from him.”
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