Turn Off Wifi: Sanju Samson’s Quick Fix to Fix Outdoor Noise Problem
One of the toughest issues a player has to deal with is external noise. It is more often associated with performance and Sanju Samson is no stranger to it. He has experienced some great lows and incredible highs in cricket this year alone.
At one point, Samson was out of the Indian team just before the T20 World Cup before making a stunning comeback to help his team win the title with three back-to-back fifties. However, he soon found himself on the verge of being left out again.
AFG vs IND 2nd T20I: Highlights | Scorecard
This coincided with the rise of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and after some lackluster performances in Ireland and England, Samson was left out of the Zimbabwe series. He returned for the Afghanistan series, but the World Cup hero was quickly branded a villain for keeping Sooryavanshi out.
A score of 10 in the first T20I did little to help him and only made the noise louder. Before Tuesday’s game fans even said they wouldn’t turn on their TVs because Vaibhav didn’t play.
So, amidst all the noise, what is Samson doing?
Well, it has a solution for all of that.
“I’m trying to turn off the Wi-Fi,” a smiling Samson joked, dividing the reporters.
But Samson feels it’s pretty normal for fans to express their opinions or speak out about things. He knows he has enough experience to handle the situation.
“And sometimes the Wi-Fi turns on and I see the comments.
“I think it’s very normal. I think it’s their choice, sometimes it’s their mood, what words they want to use. It’s really up to them. They can use a positive sentence frame or they can use a negative sentence frame.”
“So I think I’m mature enough and experienced enough to know how to handle it,” Samson said.
‘I AM NOT A ROBOT’
Aside from turning off the Wi-Fi, what mostly helped quiet the noise was Samson’s performances on the field. And on Tuesday, he needed one of those performances to help India win the series.
It was a slow and conservative start, almost like trying to work with a connection stuck on 2G or 3G in this era. At one point he was 8 off 12 ballsbefore his Wi-Fi connection seemed to be suddenly restored.
Samson beat Afghanistan’s bowling attack and brought up his fifty in just 20 balls. It was his first half-century in the format since his T20 World Cup final appearance. He finished with a score of 57 off 22 balls as India won the match by 7 wickets.
It may silence the noise for a while, but Samson admitted that outside noise does affect him at times. The difference is that he has learned to deal with it.
“I feel a little bad. I’m not a machine or a robot where I can say, ‘No, I don’t care.’ I care and it hits you a little bit, but then you try to talk to yourself and tell yourself who you are and what you have to do.”
“I think outside noise does affect cricketers in India, but you have to be clear about what your mindset is, how you have to prepare and what mindset you have to play with.
If I paid attention to it, I can’t bat like that. Before I strike, I think 10 times, “Gee, when I get out, then Wi-Fi will be a problem again.”
And that is perhaps the core of Samson’s approach. He knows the noise exists. He knows it can hurt. He also knows that pretending he doesn’t care would be a lie.
Instead, he tries to control what he can, talk under pressure and keep the team ahead of everything else. He feels the T20 World Cup played a major role in building that mindset.
“I think my international career has been very good. I think I’m very grateful. So I think the World Cup helped a lot as well.”
“So I think whatever pressure you’re under, you realize what type of player you are and you just try to go out there and express yourself and keep your team ahead,” Samson said.
So for Samson, Wi-Fi isn’t really about escaping the noise forever. He will know that there will be times when he may need to switch off for a while.
But on the field, he knows that he will always have to be on so that the noise does not drown him out.
– The end
Published on:
16 Sep 2026 0:15 AM IST