Sanju Samson, number one in a field of one

In three knockout matches at this World Cup, Sanju Samson has not only rewritten the narrative of his own career, he has written his name on this World Cup indelibly

Andrew Fidel Fernando

Published: Mar 9, 2026, 1:54 AM (8 hrs ago)

4:31

Is Sanju Samson finally here to stay?

It's finally time you listened up. Sanju Samson fans have been telling everyone for years now.

No, it's not just because he looks like he bats like everyone bats in their fantasies: head still, crisp timing, entire stadiums across the land sent swooning. Okay, fine, it is a little bit that. There is in every great Sanju Samson innings the shots that reach down through the eyeball and tickles the part of the cricket-loving heart labelled "purist". In the final in Ahmedabad, the straight drive off Jacob Duffy in the third over was one of these, the open-faced glide through deep third off a full James Neesham delivery was another wristy delectation.

In the big-power, keeping-body-shape, extension-of-the-arms, full-follow-through age, there is still a yearning for these analogue delights - the click-and-whirr of the rotary phone (look it up, kids) in the haptic feedback (look it up, boomers) era. But with such style tends to come fragility. In his first 23 innings, a sequence leading all the way to mid 2023, Samson had a solitary fifty, though he had received plenty of chances at No. 4 and higher. That one had come against Ireland in a match a team-mate hit a hundred in.

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The trademark Samson stillness is back and so are the runs

He had seemed to have rounded a corner in late 2024 when he hit T20I hundreds in Hyderabad, then Durban, then Johannesburg, all in the space of about five weeks, only to reach back out for brittleness just as the World Cup he had prepared for two years for was approaching. Scores of 10, 6, 0, 24, and 6 against New Zealand in January saw him dropped from the XI. Coach Gautam Gambhir said of him that he was hitting the ball well in the nets at the time. If you have been around cricket long enough, you would know there are few greater indictments of your batting than a coach claiming you were doing well in the uhhhh… nets.

In three knockout matches at this World Cup now (India's game against West Indies was one too), Samson has not only rewritten the narrative of his own career, providing the most glorious vindication for those who insisted he was always this good, he has achieved something more monumental: he has written his name on this World Cup so brightly, so indelibly, it is in thousand-foot bold lettering, lit up with a million watts, the glow twinkling out into space.

The statistics are irresistible. He has hit 275 runs at a strike rate of 199 in the "knockouts". For India, the next-highest scorer through this stretch is Ishan Kishan, with a tally of 103 - Samson's aggregate a 167% improvement on the next best. Though he has played only five innings this World Cup having mostly returned in the Super Eight, he is third on the tournament's overall run chart, with 321 runs. To find another batter who has played five or fewer innings, you have to go down to No. 27 on this list.

There's more impressive stuff coming. Taking only semi-finals and finals aggregates, no one has ever struck more than Samson at any World Cup, his 178 runs a 23% improvement on the next highest semis+finals scorer - Virat Kohli in 2014. And the real killer is:

No batter has scored more runs at a 175-plus strike rate in a T20 World Cup than Samson

With a cut-off of 75 balls, only one batter has scored at a higher rate than Samson in a T20 World Cup (Finn Allen is a marginal 0.63 better than Samson).

This puts Samson in all-time great World Cup territory. There has almost inarguably never been knockouts batting this relentlessly breathtaking in this format. Having not been in the XI to begin the tournament, Samson has ended it as the benchmark: the ideal to which future World Cup batters will aspire.

He takes his place now alongside the greatest knockouts performers of any age. In these halls roam the gum-chewing Viv Richards of '79, the miserly Mohinder Amarnath of '83, Shane Warne of '99 ripping balls from right hand to left at the top of his mark, Aravinda de Silva of '96 and his darting mongoose eyes as he storms to the crease, Shahid Afridi standing legs wide arms aloft in '09, and moustache man Travis Head slog sweeping in 2023.

2:23

Kumble: 'Masterclass from Sanju on how to build on form'

If there is an iconic vision of Samson from this World Cup, it is the Samson that plays that monster pull - against Jofra Archer in the semi-final against England, against Lockie Ferguson in the title match. Remember when the theory went that he struggled against the short ball? These three innings have left that Samson emphatically in the rear view. Another lifetime.

India have had belters to end all belters to bat on in the latter stages of this World Cup, but without Samson there is no semi-final victory against England, nor perhaps even an actual knockouts run, if West Indies had taken them out in Kolkata. They may have still defeated what turned out to be a hapless New Zealand, but this 89 off 46 in the final remained by a distance the most impressive knock in another dizzying night of Indian batting. Jasprit Bumrah took home the Player-of-the-Match award, a reward perhaps for his ridiculous bowling through the tournament than a reflection of his importance on Sunday night. But ESPNcricinfo's Impact Index MVP was Samson once more, the next-highest player on that list being opening partner Abhishek Sharma.

All through this run, Samson has driven India's manic agenda, his partners often prospering in his wake. "When he was smacking it around, it was making things easier for me," said Ishan Kishan, India's second-highest scorer, 119 runs back from Samson. "I was not a in a pressure situation where It was me coming there and going for big hits. It was him who was doing the big job, and I was taking the game with him. If the ball was there he was just going for it, rather than thinking of getting out."

Perhaps no batter who has claimed a Player-of-the-Tournament award at a global event has also shown such utter disinterest in completing a hundred, which is in itself profound. Ask any established batter, past or present, which they would prefer: a huge heaps of personal career milestones, or to send their team rampaging to a World Cup win. Samson has lived out the fantasies of even some of the greatest to ever play, and in doing so, passed his name into legend.

Andrew Fidel Fernando is a senior writer at ESPNcricinfo. @afidelf

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