A month back, Sanju Samson had seen his World Cup dream almost slip away as Ishan Kishan grabbed his place in the playing XI in his hometown Thiruvananthapuram during a T20I against South Africa.
The normally chirpy, fun-loving Samson cut a lonely figure in the dressing room as he would get to bat in the nets only when the regulars had finished their stints. But he never lost hope and prepared under the tutelage of Yuvraj Singh ahead of the tournament.
The batting slump he endured since the start of 2025 saw him slip to the middle-order to accommodate Shubman Gill for a while. Once he regained his top-order slot, he failed to deliver and Ishan nudged him out again.
Two years ago in the West Indies, he was part of Rohit Sharma's side which never needed him. The same story was nearly on the verge of being repeated.
As he watched in dismay, his dream getting wiped out in the early stages of the tournament, he turned to Sachin Tendulkar for guidance. His opportunity arrived against Zimbabwe as India reworked their batting plans at the start of their “knockout” matches.
“I don’t think me and the captain ever felt that Sanju was out of form. We always felt that after the New Zealand series (46 in five matches) that he needed a break,” Gambhir said on Sunday.
“Sometimes it’s good as a leadership group to give someone a break as well. Because you want to go off the pressure...
“Obviously, we had the luxury of playing different combinations as well... We had Rinku batting at that number, and then we felt that probably we needed to break that three left-handers at the top; not from a point of view where we felt that off-spinner was an issue. Trust me.
“It was never a discussion that an off-spinner is going to create a lot of problem for our two left-handers at the top. We just felt that probably we can have someone with Sanju’s ability and we can have three explosive guys at one, two and three. I don’t think it was courage, it was tactical.”
It has since been a dream comeback for the opener. He has 275 runs at a strike rate of 199 in the “knockouts” — 97 not out against the West Indies, then 89 in the semi-final and 89 in the title decider on Sunday.
With only five innings in this World Cup, he is third on the tournament’s overall run-chart, with 321 runs. It’s the impact he had on India’s fortunes which earned him the Player of the Tournament award.
Samson often made his partner’s task easier at the other end, as Ishan pointed out during their 105-run stand off 48 balls in the final.
“When he was smacking it around, it was making things easier for me,” said Ishan Kishan, India’s second-highest scorer, 119 runs behind Samson.
Samson’s high-risk high-reward approach was the perfect blend of batting India needed to survive in the tournament following the loss to South Africa in their Super Eight opener. When most batters would adopt a safety-first approach, Samson never thought about giving away his wicket.
This change in mindset is what Gambhir’s team had been yearning for and Samson fitted the bill perfectly.
“I always believe that high-risk, high-reward is the only way to play a T20 format... You don’t fear losing a game of cricket to win a game of cricket. If you start fearing to lose a game of cricket, you will never win,” Gambhir said.
“And that’s why, my ideology with the captain was very simple... we will not play a match of 160-170. I would rather accept that we get all out at 100, but that 150-160 takes you nowhere.
“If you play high risk, that’s when you make 250-260 runs. And they have come. We lost a match against South Africa by 100 runs... But that ideology never changed, that mindset never changed. I never thought that now let’s play a little subdued.”
Samson’s last-three innings showed that he never puts personal milestones ahead of team goals, which has been the Gambhir mantra that has driven this unit.
When most expected him to fail, he has turned not just his own but the team’s fortunes in a whirlwind fashion. None perhaps has had such a telling influence in India’s successful World Cup campaigns since Mohinder Amarnath in 1983 and Yuvraj Singh in 2011.