Just when you think you have Indian cricket figured out, it makes you think again.
Coming into the T20 World Cup, the debate had a clean slate. Sanju Samson or Ishan Kishan. One seat, two applicants and a selection process that looked like it had already been done.
When India announced their squad and Kishan’s return became the main talking point, it felt like the final nail in the coffin for Samson’s playing hopes.
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The experts weighed in. Timelines have moved on.
And then, as cricket so often does, he laughed at us all.
Not only yes Samson plays, but he also became the Player of the Tournament. Three consecutive match wins against West Indies, England and New Zealand. A player who wasn’t even supposed to be in the XI ended up being the architect of India’s third T20 World Cup title.
And the point? In the final itself, it was Samson and Kishan, two players we had pitted against each other for months, who combined to give India a sensational start and help set a mammoth target of 256 runs.
The rivalry we so carefully built up, the either-or debate that filled columns and timelines for weeks, turned out to be a false choice all along.
You couldn’t have written it better.
THE STORY WE BUILT
This is about selection debates. From the outside they always look like they are at war. Player A versus Player B. One wins, one loses. Social media is picking sides. Experts draw battle lines. Columns are written. Hot dishes are served.
But that’s rarely how it works inside the dressing room, especially in a professional one like this Indian outfit. Samson himself gave us an insight into the reality in an interview with Star Sports.
He talked about how Gautam Gambhir pulled him aside in the gym and simply told him he would play the next game. No drama. No grand gesture. Just a quiet conversation between a coach and his player while the rest of the world was busy writing it off.
“Honestly, I don’t like to compete with my own teammates for a place. But once we are together and fighting for a cause, I bring out my best,” Samson said on Star Sports after the T20 World Cup win.
That one line cuts through months of noise better than any analysis could.
WHEN THE NOISE ENTERS
It wasn’t the first time Samson found himself on the wrong side of a selection process. Cast your mind back to the Asia Cup in 2025. He looked set to open alongside Abhishek Sharma.
Then Gambhir changed course to accommodate Shubman Gill’s growing role as a future leader across formatsby tucking it up instead.
Gill is by no means a slouch when it comes to the shortest format. He was among the runs during the IPL and it only made sense that he got his preferred slot at the top. Soon after, when Ishan Kishan returned, he looked to be at his best in the lead in the T20 World Cup.
But the Ishan-Abhishek combination carried a tactical vulnerability that opposition teams were quick to identify. With two left-handers on top, the sides started deploying the right-arm corkscrews early, aiming the angle into their stumps and disrupting India’s rhythm before the over was complete.
Strong individual performances were not enough to compensate for the lack of a balanced, threatening opening stand. The consequences were felt in order. When the top doesn’t fire, the middle is left to chase and fire under pressure.
Contributed directly to India’s defeat of South Africa, a result that nearly put their World Cup defense in serious jeopardy before it had even begun.
Samson paid the price regardless. He struggled in the games he was given and the doubts began to creep back in. The Sanju versus Ishan conversation that never really went away picked up again. Except the people who had it were mostly outsiders. Inside, another calculation was already underway.
UNREAL BUT FAIR
Which is easy to miss Gambhir’s point is that the same ruthlessness that costs a player his place is also what gets him back. He’s not sentimental, but he’s also not vindictive. If you’re out, it’s because someone else is offering a better tactic at the time. If the equation changes, so does the team. Sanju Samson has featured in India’s last three matches of the 2026 FIFA World Cup T20. (Image: Reuters)
Samson’s return was just that. Against a more varied bowling attack, the right-hander combination in the top left suddenly had strategic value. Samson’s ability to hit and disrupt the spin soon made him not just an option but a tactical answer. The question was never really Sanju or Ishan. It was about how to fit them both in and when.
Tilak Varma tells a similar story. Batting number three, he never looked at home. The role required a pace and a decision-making framework that didn’t match where his game was at.
He moved to number five and looked like the batsman everyone always said he could be. Gambhir supported him, pushed him and the result was that the player finally played to his strengths instead of fighting against a role that wasn’t his.
This is harder to see from the outside, where every selection decision is filtered through the lens of who won and who lost.
THE CONVERSATION WE DIDN’T HAVE
We spent months wondering if India should pick Samson or Kishan. The team spent equal amounts of time figuring out how to play them both. We had a very bad conversation.
And that’s perhaps a broader truth that we don’t talk about enough. The stories we build outside the locker room, the rivalries of the players, the ultimatums, the verdict that someone’s time is up, it will not be left out.
They penetrate inside. They find their way into phones and conversations and sometimes even into a player’s head at the worst possible moment.
If ego comes into play within a team, it ceases to be a team. That’s obvious. But we don’t always take into account that egos are not always inside the locker room. Sometimes it’s ours, as journalists, as analysts, as fans, who need a clean story with a winner and a loser.
Sanju Samson’s World Cup was a reminder that the best stories are rarely the ones we predict. The man we had written off came back to play three innings for the ages and walk away with the biggest individual honor of the tournament. And he did it while standing next to the player we said he was competing with.
Maybe this lesson is simple.
The team always knows something the scientists don’t. Trust them to figure it out.
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– The end
Issued by:
Amar Panicker
Published on:
10 March 2026 09:32 IST
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