Last November, for whatever reason you may choose to believe, Rajasthan Royals let go of Sanju Samson. A few months later, the legend of Samson – more than a decade in the making for India – rises and he turns into the caliph of the clutch and the pasha of the Powerplay, giving India’s T20 World Cup campaign wings, claws, et al.
Of his five (from India’s nine) T20 World Cup matches, no one remembers 22 and 24 vs Namibia and Zimbabwe. But we’re sure as hell never forgetting 97*, 89, 89.
Also remember, CSK procured Samson in exchange for Ravindra Jadeja and Sam Curran, a one-for-two deal that now leaves no doubt about the value. CSK are allowed a chuckle. Samson’s cult-figure status has only expanded in the last week of the World Cup; His Instagram following went from 11.5m to 18m as of this week. (RR marketing facepalms).
Samson now finds himself at the top of India’s white-ball batting totem – not just a World Cup-sealing innings, but that stuff three times over. His cricket and his personality, though, remain curious amalgams.
At the crease, Samson’s batting is steeped in classical frameworks – the godgift of timing, the purity of his batswing, the ability to hold shape, the lightness and balance in a frame which can lovingly be described as chunky. The sounds off that bat and that frame though — the crack, whizz, smack, sizzle — seem to belong to a hypersonic future.
Then, there’s the man who respectfully evades each of those descriptors for the Indian men’s team — tattooed, athletic, six-pack-flaunting, lean — and till he operates on a unique, social media frequency, gaining millions of Insta followers long before he was a dead certainty for the Indian team.
Much of that before March 2026 related to Samson’s Kerala-geist, his innate Malluness which resonates, in look, word and sense with everyone.
Sriram Parakkat, Supreme Court lawyer and a Sanju-loyalist explains. Kerala didn’t really have any cricketing heroes, “beyond Sreesanth” who was, “a different personality.”
Samson’s faithful have been with him for the past 10-12 years. “We waited a long time for him to perform for India, all the struggles…” and Parakkat says Malayalees “also like the soap opera kind of story.”
Gotcha. Malayalam media readily jumped onto Samson’s rollercoaster, doing interviews with the man and talk shows discussing when he would play for India. Social media campaigns hashtagged ‘Justice for Sanju Samson’ to the point that after the final, India bowler Arshdeep Singh, his arm hooked around Samson’s shoulder made an Insta reel, hollering, “Justice Mil Gaya!”
What has endeared Samson more across his community, Parakkat says is, “humility. He is a kindly man, we know he wouldn’t gloat over his achievement.”
His closest comparison – Sachin Tendulkar, who first “took that very middle class Maharashtrian community on his sleeve and then took on the whole of India.” Like Tendulkar, Samson too was a teenage prodigy with an uncommon talent. Kerala was smitten at first sight, but unlike Tendulkar it took Samson 15-odd years to win over the rest of the country.
Coach-mentor Zubin Bharucha says this is because he has grown into a “completely unique” elite cricketer. In an age of carefully-maintained social media personas, the public Samson has no mask.
Bharucha says, “It’s difficult to describe but everything he does comes from a very pure place… he helps everybody in every situation, he wants to do good around him.” Samson’s instinctive response to anyone in a jam, “what’s the issue – I’ll sort it out, main kartaa hoon.”
No matter what may be happening with his cricket, he is aware and engaged with the world around him. Bharucha has spoken of Samson getting houses built and repaired in his community and funding children’s education. He’s jumps into pick-up matches if he’s around them and there is a video of a cassocked priest bowling to him on the local church grounds.
Samson’s last 15 years have been, Bharucha says, about trying to conquer the mind and its many priorities.
“How do you marry the mind of a person who wants to do so much good with the fact that he has got this incredible ability to hit a cricket ball?”
Incredible, here is, “in terms of the way the ball leaves the bat is probably in the top three or four who have ever played the game – that’s the gift that he has. How do you convert that into anything special?”
India were gifted the ultra-special. In Samson’s unrushed, unflustered chase vs West Indies, his razor-focussed takedown of England and New Zealand.
After it was done, Bharucha says he felt, “somewhere deep down that it (the last three innings) was written in his DNA, on his bloody hand… like something larger than himself was operating through him.
The body and the mind being used in the service of something far greater.” Bharucha’s usual take on batting is sharp, layered, objective. But this is not technical dissection anymore. He is instead trying to tap into the Zen of Sanju.
