Sanju Samson had every reason to be chuffed. He had, after all, hit his second consecutive T20I hundred in the preceding few hours before he arrived for a press conference staged amid the relics of Kingsmead's museum on Friday. We do mean hit, not scored. Or maybe shaken, not stirred. Samson's 107 in the first T20I against South Africa flew off 50 balls. His 111 against Bangladesh in Hyderabad last month was a rush job of 47 deliveries. Those are strike rates of 214.00 and 236.17. Of his two-match total of 218 runs, 82.57% flowed in fours and sixes. Samson's other 28 T20I innings yielded nothing more significant than 77 against Ireland at Malahide in June 2022 and 58 against Zimbabwe in Harare in June this year. Perhaps that explains why he has been shunted up and down the order to the extent that he has batted in each of the top seven positions. It wouldn't have helped his cause that, after making his debut in July 2015, he didn't play another T20I for the next four-and-a-half years. Not even the two centuries Samson hammered in the 2017 and 2019 editions of the IPL - and his unbeaten 92 off 45 in 2018 - cracked the nod for his return to India's ranks. He added a third IPL ton in 2021, but played only three of India's 16 T20Is that year. Had this police officer's son been of a different bent, he might have called his father to report the theft of a chance to establish himself at international level. So he was justified in looking pleased with himself on Friday. But how was he so relaxed, as if he had spent the evening not battering bowlers but on nearby Addington Beach? Here's how... "I have faced a lot of failures in my career," Samson said. "When you go through that failure, you have a lot of doubts in your mind. You doubt yourself. People say social media definitely plays its role in that. But you also think a lot about yourself: 'Sanju, are you not made for international level? You are doing well in the IPL. Why are you not doing well internationally?' I have a lot of such thoughts. "But, after so many years of experience, I know what my ability is. If I spend some time at the crease I have a shot-making ability against spin as well as pace. And I know I can definitely contribute to the team. I can help the team win." Samson spoke in a cool, calm, clear voice and his eyes were filled with soft light. For someone who has felt what cricket can do to you, he sounded more like someone who had felt what cricket could do for you. He had been hurt by the game, but also healed by it. "There are a lot of downs but the upside is also really good. I used to keep telling myself that. If you have a supporting captain like Surya, Gautam bhai or Laxman sir, they help you get through your failures. "The way they communicate with you during your failures is very important. They know that if you are going through a negative phase, you as a player can get lost. I received a lot of phone calls from Gautam bhai and Surya telling me what to work on - 'Your batting against spin is not working. You should gather all the spinners in Kerala. You should practice on rough pitches. You should do this and that.'" Other players might hear alarms in that kind of advice, as if the selectorial axe is raised above their necks. Not Samson: "If your captain is calling you and telling you how to practise after you have had a few ducks, you have confidence that he is trusting you. He wants you to do well. All those small things have played a huge role in me coming back. I am very grateful that trust has been shown on me. I think I have been able to give it back to my team." Gerald Coetzee is as fiery as Samson is calm. But they both know how it feels to be on the bench. Coetzee's downtime, to recover from injury and undergo a conditioning phase, was not quite six months. But when he took the first of his three wickets on Friday, courtesy of a diving, over-the-shoulder catch by Aiden Markram running towards the mid-off boundary to remove Abhishek Sharma in the fourth over, Coetzee let loose a yell that might have been heard in India. "I hurt my throat," Coetzee said. "I think it showed that I was very grateful to be back." Samson will know how that feels.