Few players in India’s T20I setup have experienced a swing in form quite as sharp as Sanju Samson’s over the past month.
The lean patch
After a heroic run to the 2026 T20 World Cup title, where he was named Player of the Tournament with 321 runs, Samson’s form dipped noticeably. Across his following five T20I innings, he managed scores of just 5, 0, 1, 27 and 10, including a quiet 10 off 8 balls in the opening match against Afghanistan, which left his place in the XI genuinely under pressure given the depth of options in India’s batting order.
The response
Samson answered those questions in the best possible way. In the second T20I against Afghanistan, he smashed 57 off just 22 balls, including seven fours and four sixes at a strike rate over 259, powering India to a seven-wicket win while chasing 160 in 14.5 overs. He followed that up in the third T20I by passing 9,000 career T20 runs, a milestone reached during India’s series-sealing 127-run victory.
Why this matters for his place
India’s wicketkeeping battle has become one of the more compelling subplots of the current T20I side, with Ishan Kishan’s remarkable comeback adding genuine competition for Samson’s spot. His response against Afghanistan, both in scoring rate and in reaching a career milestone, gives selectors a strong reason to persist with him heading into India’s next assignment, even as captain Shreyas Iyer continues to rotate combinations to find India’s best XI.
Samson’s T20I career has always been defined by peaks and troughs rather than steady consistency, but the manner of this recovery, delivered under genuine pressure, is exactly the kind of response his supporters have long argued he’s capable of.
How he builds on it in India’s next series will say a lot about whether this turnaround marks a genuine shift or simply another peak in an already well-established pattern.