A certain tension seemed to hover over the evening of March 1, when India faced West Indies in a must-win match of the Men’s T20 World Cup. By the end of the powerplay two wickets had already fallen, and India’s place in the semi-finals hung in the balance. At the crease stood Sanju Samson on 24, scored in typically quick time – off just 13 balls.
For followers of Sanju, the number had begun to carry its own nervous weight. In his previous two matches he had got out at 22 and 24. In the five-match series against New Zealand before that, 24 had been his highest score – a brisk 24 off just 15 balls. Cross the 20s, many of his supporters silently prayed, and be safe.
Many sighs were heaved when Sanju sailed past not just 30 but all the way to 97, batting with an effortless fluency that day and steering India to a crucial victory that secured its place in the semi-finals. When the final shot was played, he knelt down on the ground, uncovered his helmet and prayed to the skies – a gesture and knock reminiscent of Jemimah Rodrigues’ in the 2025 Women’s Cricket World Cup.
But this was a long, long-awaited innings for Sanju Samson, carrying the weight of a player with immense potential but not getting to prove himself all that often. For a long time he has suffered from off-and-on form, from being dropped from the team now and again, from an inconsistency that he was finally beginning to emerge from.
In the next two matches – the semi finals against England and the final against New Zealand – Sanju scored a towering 89 each. When India won the T20 World Cup on March 8 and kept its trophy for another term, Sanju was awarded Player of the Tournament. It felt like a dream, he said.
Although he was in the team, he couldn’t play a game in the 2024 World Cup. “I kept on visualising, dreaming and working, and this,” he said, looking at the award he just received, “is exactly what I wanted to do.”
Adding that things have turned around for him by god’s grace, he said, “After the New Zealand series I was broke and completely shattered, wondering what else do I do. But god had different plans. I suddenly came back to the crucial games (of the World Cup) and I did what I could for my country. I am so very proud and happy that I was courageous enough to dream about it.”
He was, however, little seen as the camera panned to take in the excitement of the team members on the ground, celebrating and hooting and dancing among themselves. With his trademark ever-present smile, he posed for a few photographs and joined gaily for the team picture with the cup.
Amid the celebrations of victory, Sanju seemed content to bask in the unexpected bout of joy the last three innings had brought him.
“Whatever his inner turmoil may be, externally he always remains calm. In the first few games of the World Cup this time, he was dropped. But he went about his routine, he never got upset with anyone or blamed anyone,” says KN Ananthapathmanabhan, umpire and former first-class player from Kerala.
Composed ‘Chettan’
Sanju, at 31, has matured into a senior member of the team, with a reputation for remaining composed at all junctures. His international numbers, though built over relatively fewer opportunities, are striking. Unmindful of records – it is clear when you lash out at 89 twice in a row – in One Day Internationals he has scored a century and three fifties in just 16 matches. In T20 internationals, he has three centuries and six 50s to his name.
Sanju’s strike rate perhaps offers a clearer picture of the impact he brings to the crease: nearly 100 in ODIs and 156 in T20s.
Sanju has played international cricket for more than a decade now and captained Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League for five seasons. This year, he is moving to Chennai Super Kings, a team led for the longest time by MS Dhoni, the original Captain Cool who has led his men to win five IPL titles. Sanju is not quite there yet, but appears to be on the same ‘cool’ path.
In a pre-match chat with Sanjay Manjrekar last year, Sanju drew a parallel with Malayalam superstar Mohanlal to make a point about his batting position. He couldn’t insist on opening all the time, he said; like Mohanlal, he should be able to play a hero, a villain, or a joker.
There is a humorous side to the sportsman, away from the ground, when he is with his team mates and fooling around with reels of Malayalam cinema. His non-Malayali friends fondly call him ‘Chetta’, meaning big brother. The only time he is scared, he said once, is when he posts photos of his wife Charulatha without asking her.
But less than two months ago, Sanju had appeared lost when he came down to his hometown in Thiruvananthapuram to play against New Zealand and was dismissed for six. It came at a time when his role in the side had been shifting repeatedly, from opening to batting lower down the order, amid changes in the team combination.
And yet the crowd never stopped cheering him on, through ups and downs. It was like their calling out of his name was the invisible pat he badly needed.
"People at home have always stood with me, especially during my setbacks. I have wanted to give them back some good times. I dedicate this performance to all my townsfolk. Their genuine support and prayers and good wishes bring tears to my eyes. I don't know if I deserve so much love. Thanks everyone,” Sanju told reporters as soon as he landed at the Thiruvananthapuram airport on March 9 and received a grand welcome from lines of fans queuing up to show their support.
The joy was all the greater because there had been little hope that Sanju would even be in the team, let alone play games and score crucial runs for it.
The relatively poor performance in the New Zealand series – 10, 6, 0, 24, 6 – had cast doubts on his inclusion in the T20 World Cup. Ishan Kishan, another wicketkeeper and batter, with his century in the Thiruvananthapuram match and another 78 in the series, seemed like a predictable replacement.
When the team was announced, Sanju was in the squad of 15 for the World Cup, but there was no guarantee that he would play – he hadn’t in the 2024 World Cup. This time, he got pulled in once, was dropped again, and pulled back a second time.
First, he got to play in the match against Namibia when Abhishek Sharma, the other opener, was injured.
It was against Abhishek that Sanju’s fans had got most riled up during the World Cup. Abhishek, who had been in strong form leading up to the tournament and was among the top-ranked batters in the format, was retained even after three successive ducks, while Sanju remained on the bench. The comparison fuelled animated debates among supporters over whether Sanju deserved a chance.
In a press conference during the World Cup, when the Indian captain Suryakumar Yadav was asked about Sanju’s inclusion, he had said with a smirk, “Are you asking me to replace Abhishek, or Tilak (another batter)?”
This caused much distress among supporters of Sanju, who had for long been complaining about the alleged unfair treatment of the rare player from Kerala who made it to the team. They alleged discrimination and a lack of opportunities for Sanju.
After Tinu Yohannan and S Sreesanth, Sanju is the third player from Kerala to make it to the national team. “The discrimination [towards Sanju] was obvious. But Sanju has the advantage of being fluent in Hindi, having spent his childhood in Delhi,” says TC Mathew, former secretary of the Kerala Cricket Association.
Move to Thiruvananthapuram
Sanju was 12 years old when he moved from Delhi to Thiruvananthapuram with his family. In an interview with Dhanya Varma, he admitted that the whole family had made the move for the sake of his cricketing career, although he was too young to appreciate it at the time.
Sanju’s father, Samson Viswanath, was a police official and football player. But when his children, Sanju and his elder brother Saly, showed interest in cricket, he encouraged them.
The first games were street cricket matches in Delhi, the way most Indian children are introduced to the sport. Sanju was about five at the time. When he began to show talent, his father enrolled him in an academy and, reckoning that he had better chances to be picked into the team from Kerala, made the big move.
Samson took voluntary retirement from the police force and, along with his wife Ligy and the two boys, shifted to Vizhinjam, a coastal town Thiruvananthapuram.
Even Sanju’s fisherman grandfather Anthonis played a role in his upbringing, taking the boys to a ground in Vizhinjam and throwing a ball at them without really understanding the game. From there, the boys were taken over by Biju George, former cricketer and renowned coach in Thiruvananthapuram.
In one of his early interviews with Asianet News, Sanju, as a lad, speaks of his coaching with Biju George, who is now the fielding coach of Delhi Capitals. Biju has been training young cricketers on the grounds of Thiruvananthapuram Medical College for years, and later famously coached the Indian Women's Cricket team.
When TNM called him, Biju George did not wish to comment but passed on his very best wishes to Sanju. He also shared a single telling picture after the World Cup final, showing Sanju as the player scoring most runs in a single edition of T20 (321 runs in five innings, above Virat Kohli’s 319 in six innings and Ishan Kishan’s 317 in nine).
“It is Biju who brought Sanju and his brother Saly to the KCA as children,” recalls TC Mathew. “Sanju played in under-13 and under-16 and became an all India topper. We chose him for a cricket tour in Brisbane, Australia when he was 13, and for a South Africa tour when he was 14. This gave him some early exposure and he played well, keeping wickets and scoring runs. In his 15th year, I insisted that he should be included in the Ranji Trophy. Sreesanth was then the captain of the Kerala team.”
In those years, Mathew had observed Sanju practise with coach Biju George at the Medical College grounds and realised the potential the young boy had in the game. Although there were some misunderstandings between Mathew and Sanju’s father regarding a disciplinary action against him, these were later brushed aside by both parties.
Mathew proudly watched Sanju bag the Emerging Player of the Year award as an 18-year-old when he made his IPL debut for Rajasthan Royals in 2013.
“He was lucky to get a mentor like Rahul Dravid and train under VVS Laxman, when he made his international debut in 2015,” says Ananthapadmanabhan.
Sanju’s relations with Rahul Dravid, who served as coach of Rajasthan Royals and the Indian cricket team, are known to have helped the young player in a big way. He was 20, mouldable, and high spirited when he made his debut in both the T20 and One Day International formats in 2015. He is yet to play in Test cricket.
“I have been following his career and I believe he went into the national team as a result of hard work,” says Khyrunnisa A, author of the Butterfingers children’s books, several of which revolve around cricket. “We only think of successes, not of a player’s hard work before that. Sanju was determined to make it to the team. He was persistent and dogged. I am proud someone from Kerala has made it. It’s great that he is also so grounded.”
Sanju has spoken about spending six to seven hours a day practising. He has admitted putting so much work into his game that when he still failed on the ground, he felt lost, not knowing what more to do. The happiest thing for him to do is his profession, he has said.
But he has never taken the bait when question after question has been asked about the allegedly unfair treatment of him, about a bias that kept him out of games.
“We have spoken about this and he agrees with me that it is the game that we love, and playing every game was a joy, not just World Cup games,” says Ananthapadmanabhan. “The best thing to do was keep oneself fit for whenever an opportunity came. There was no point in blaming another. And Sanju has never done that, he has never cribbed.”
The umpire quotes several examples of other players who have lost chances, and this having nothing to do with where you come from. “Jaiswal or Gill or Suryavanshi, they are all good players but they are not in the team. Rohit Sharma has already retired (from T20s and Tests). Kuldeep was in the squad but he still couldn’t play a match,” Ananthapadmanabhan rattles off a few names to make his point.
As for Sanju, a man who habitually shows maturity far beyond his age, setbacks in life have long become ‘turning points’ in his career. He brushes off leading questions, refusing to even lightly speak ill of another, but becoming vocal in his gratitude to everyone, senior and peer, who has helped him. When he took the trophy for Player of the Tournament on March 8, he let slip the name of Sachin Tendulkar as the one he had reached out to when he felt devastated, and who had kindly offered support.
All eyes were on the screen when Sanju went back to the dressing room after his winning 97 (not out), after securing an unexpected spot on the team that March day. Suryakumar Yadav was inside, and the camera zoomed in as one faced the other. Sanju stretched out his hand and grabbed Surya’s as the other broke into a laugh.
Not Captain Cool, Sanju, but definitely Chettan Chill.
