Sanju Samson’s resurgence was at the heart of India’s 2026 T20 World Cup victory and batting coach Sitanshu Kotak has now revealed that India turned back to the 31-year-old during the tournament to beat a tactic that opposition teams seemed to have employed to neutralise their top-order. Samson had been dropped from India’s first-choice eleven after a string of low scores, particularly in the series against New Zealand that preceded the T20 World Cup.
He failed to make too big an impact in the two matches that he ended up playing in the first half of the tournament, before putting together a hat-trick of big scores in in India’s final Super Eight match against the West Indies, which was a virtual quarterfinal, their semifinal against England and the final against New Zealand. India batting coach Sitanshu Kotak said that the team finally went back to Samson due to oppositions catching them out with off spinners early on.
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“We realised that against off-spin we had three left-handers at the top because Tilak (Varma) was batting at No. 3,” Kotak told Cricbuzz. “But after a point there is no point being stubborn. We had four games where we lost a wicket in the first over, and that was the moment when we started thinking differently. Sometimes you can also say it is God’s plan. In a way, it worked like that for us because it made us think that we had to utilise Sanju.
“Rinku was not getting many opportunities at No. 8. At the start we also needed to break that left-left-left combination. That is how Sanju came back into the picture. We decided that we would go with two wicketkeepers – it didn’t matter. Sanju could keep wickets and Ishan is an equally good fielder. Ishan also happily said that it was fine and that he would field. So sometimes these things also fall into place.”
Kotak said that Samson’s return to the top of the order gave India a left-right opening combination, regardless of whether it was Abhishek Sharma or Ishan Kishan who were walking out with the Kerala cricketer.
“Once Sanju opened, the combination became left-right. Then at No. 3 we could have Ishan and then Tilak. From No. 4, 5 and 6 we had a lot of flexibility. Surya even sent Shivam ahead of him in the semi-final, I think, and in the final he sent Hardik ahead of him. So we had that kind of flexibility in the middle order. That worked really well. And Sanju, with his temperament and leadership qualities, the way he batted in the last three games was just unreal. We always knew what he was capable of. That is why people backed him,” said Kotak.
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