Sanju Samson is already considered too old to make it to India’s team for the T20 World Cup. Come 2026, when India hosts the 2026 T20 World Cup, Samson will turn 31 years old. While former Indian spinner Amit Mishra reckons that the administration would have moved on from Samson by 31 because of his age, he was also picked as a part of the 2024 T20 WC-winning team of India. However, he ended up sitting on the bench the whole time and never played a single game. So, he too became a World Champion with the team without playing even a single match.
Sanju Samson’s T20I Journey Amidst India’s Youth Surge
Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are two mainstays of the Indian T20I side; with the announcement of their retirement from the T20I format, the team will see a sea of change. It has already begun to be told. Quite discernible in the recent series against Zimbabwe, even outgoing batting coach Vikram Rathour has emphasized that it must be done gradually.
By the time Team India walks out for a 2026 T20 World Cup, it is going to be a Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah, Suryakumar Yadav ensemble experience with backs joined by youngsters like Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Shivam Dube, Rinku Singh, and everyone else who by then would have only got more polished and battle-hardened.
Till some miracle takes place, Amit Mishra believes, nothing can save Samson from making it to the 2026 squad. However, he said there were so many young talents down in the team, and he elaborated on the theory of focusing on the youngster from the T20I itself Virat Kohli.
Mishra added that though he feels for Samson, younger players coming in, it’s hard to get a spot for older.
There is yet another factor that may complicate the chances of Sanju Samson. Anybody knows that one of the major propensities is rivalry for the role of a wicketkeeper. No doubt, Rishabh Pant is already India’s first-choice wicketkeeper-batter. Together with this, there is an incredible bunch of young, budding wicketkeeper-batsmen who are waiting in the wings and looking for a chance, making everything all the more difficult for Sanju Samson to break through.
Need for Extraordinary Performance
Something extraordinary has to be done to get Samson on the line. But if Samson stays around in the team and keeps performing consistently, then his claim for the next World Cup could also be taken care of. But looking at the kind of competition that is there well it is a tall order. The list of the young blood and talent eyeing that slot in the T20I team for India becomes even tougher with people like Ishan Kishan, Dhruv Jurel, and Jitesh Sharma sitting in line.
Mishra countered this belief that T20 cricket is just a game for young blood. He felt that experienced players play a very long important role in succeeding in any game. Further, he explained examples from the 2007 and 2024 T20 World Cups where roles played by Sehwag, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Harbhajan, Kohli, Rohit, Bumrah, and Hardik were very imperative.
He marked out what the seniors bring into the scheme of things – experience. Experience in a T20 game counts all the more when drawing. Seaming the youth and experience together seems to be one ingredient of any successful T20 team; doing away with the seniors altogether could well prove to be counterproductive.
Thus, what is very essentially expected to be balanced in the selection which has to come from the side of BCCI is experience mixed with youth. While young players bring exuberance into the team and add fresh talent to it, experiences bring forth stability and forthrightness in thinking during strategy making. It is an act of balancing that will take the team forward into the future.
Then again, the future of Samson in T20I cricket is quite in doubt. He would have to come out with something extra special should he be at the next World Cup. Probably, Samson might just make a place for himself if he keeps giving these solid performances, but the competition is enormous.
