This is for anyone who has ever felt left behind.
Back in their careers. Behind in life. Watching others get the opportunities they worked just as hard for. Sitting in rooms where everyone but them seems to belong.
This is for anyone who kept going anyway.
Because sport at its best isn’t just about who wins. It’s about how much it costs to get there. And sometimes the most powerful victories are the ones that lasted the longest.
Sanju Samson knows something about it.
A YEAR BETWEEN
For most of his international career, Samson navigated a difficult space. Too good to ignore. Not quite trustworthy enough to be relied upon.
Kerala had known what he was capable of for years. IPL too. But Indian cricket is ruthless in a way. The queue is long. The competition is fierce. And the timing just didn’t work in his favor for long.
India vs West Indies: Scorecard | Highlighting
He was picked and dropped. Reminded and overlooked. Always on the edge of something. Never fully inside.
The lowest point came quietly. No drama. No shedding. Only a place in the dugout for the T20 World Cup 2024. The tournament he traveled to. A tournament in which he did not play. Not once.
He sat there and watched India lift the trophy.
Sit with it for a moment. To be so close. To be in the building. Being part of a team and still feeling completely outside of it.
Most people would walk away from all of this in silence. They convinced themselves it wasn’t. He found a reason to stop believing.
Sanju Samson is back.
EVERYTHING CHANGED AT NIGHT
When he walked out to bat against the West Indies, India needed a record chase. The kind that silences locker rooms.
He didn’t flinch.
What followed was no flashy innings. It was built. Calmly and deliberately. He respected the good balls and made the bad ones pay. He steadied himself as wickets fell around him. When the asking rate climbed, he responded. He did not celebrate after fifty. He went back to his mark, scratched his guard and reset.
Still so much work to do.
He finished unbeaten on 97 off 50 balls. In doing so, he broke Virat Kohli’s record for the highest score by an Indian in a T20 World Cup chase. The man he had watched from the dugout for years. Learn from. Waiting in the back.
The crowd erupted when the winning shot rang out.
And Sanju Samson fell to his knees. Hands raised to the sky. I thank the Almighty. He finally allowed himself to feel something he had been holding back for a very long time.
In the subsequent presentation, his voice was quiet but firm. “I still doubted myself,” he said. “I kept thinking, what if, what if, can I make it? But I kept believing.”
The whole journey in three sentences.
Here is the thing about Samson’s story that deserves to be made clear. The shift was special. The record was remarkable. But neither of these is a real success.
The real success is everything that came before. Years of quiet perseverance. Morning about ignorance. World Cup kick off. A choice we’ve made time and time again, to believe when it was hardest to hold on to faith.
This is no small thing. That’s all.
Cricket will go on. This is always true. Another series, another tournament, another name, another moment will soon take over the conversation.
But for one night in Calcutta, under those lights, it was all his.
He didn’t arrive early. It didn’t look easy. Perhaps that is why he is so popular and loved among fans.
But he did it.
And if you’ve ever felt left behind, if you’ve ever sat on the outside of something you tried so hard to be a part of, if you’ve ever kept going when it was easier to stop, then you understand exactly why it mattered.
This one was for you too.
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– The end
Published on:
March 02, 2026 08:16 IST
