Sanju Samson won the Player of the Tournament award for his 321 runs in five games in T20 WC 2026.
Congress leader and Keralam’s Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor recalled how Team India coach Gautam Gambhir told him that talented Sanju Samson should be himself, rather than becoming the next MS Dhoni, as the leader wanted him to be.
Tharoor praised Samson's performance during India's recent successful T20 World Cup 2026 campaign and recalled this interaction with Gambhir. Tharoor, who has backed Samson since the beginning of his club cricket career, expressed his immense delight in the player's accomplishments.
"I actually met him when he was 14; he was a young club cricketer, a small chap with a big smile. He was already quite muscular, though he was slender to look at, and had tremendous talent; he was already both wicketkeeping and batting.
I had slightly patronizingly told him (Samson) that he would be the next Dhoni. Years later, when I recalled that remark, my friend Gautam Gambhir said, "No, no, no, he does not have to be the next Dhoni; he will be the one and only Sanju Samson," and that is exactly what he has turned out to be," Tharoor told PTI.
Samson, who made his India debut in 2015, finally came good in true terms, scoring 321 runs in 5 innings in India’s T20 World Cup campaign with a strike rate of 199.37. He was named the Player of the Tournament for his performance.
Samson was also traded by CSK from RR ahead of the IPL 2026 auction, and Tharoor talked about the same.
"When I suffered with him, as it were, during the trials and tribulations, I felt that if he could just compose himself, it would all come back; that core, that essence, that talent was always there.
What I think I saw in his eyes in that match against the West Indies, the moment he began that match, I said, 'This guy is not getting out today.' I even told him this later because I actually was watching it on TV, but you could see his eyes; you could see the calmness in his face, that sense of being secure, and he went on to score 97 not out; he never got out in that match," Tharoor said.
He also pointed to Samson's two subsequent semi-final and final performances of 89 runs each.
"In both those innings, he lost his wicket in a selfless act. When he got to 89, he could have said, "Let me just graft for the next 11 runs, hit the ball along the ground, and run the singles, maybe a four," but he went for the big shots because the team, he felt, needed quick runs, and that is Sanju," Tharoor said. "He is selfless, he is talented, he is dedicated. He has had the knocks; he really has had bad luck. I remember he scored a century in an ODI and got dropped after that," the Congress leader said.
“This is a guy who has had to take a fair bit of unfairness, and some of his exclusions were justified because he had also been inconsistent. But three innings in a row in a World Cup—that is consistency for you. I would love to see him continue to perform on the big stage both in ODIs and T20s and one day in a Test match too because that kind of talent deserves its fullest expression in every form of the game," Tharoor asserted.
Samson had produced knocks of 97, 89, and 89 in three crucial games to help India land their third T20 World Cup win, which was also the second in a row and the first by a home team.
Gambhir had lauded Samson’s performance and called him a special talent.
(PTI inputs)