“It was not courage…” – Gautam Gambhir explains decision to bring back Sanju Samson after India’s T20 World Cup 2026 win

India head coach Gautam Gambhir explained the thinking behind bringing Sanju Samson back into the playing XI during the T20 World Cup 2026. Samson had featured in only one of India’s first five matches in the tournament. However, he returned to the side during the Super Eight stage against Zimbabwe. The wicketkeeper-batter then produced a remarkable run with three consecutive half-centuries.

Samson was originally expected to open the innings for India in the World Cup. But during the series against New Zealand before the tournament, Ishan Kishan impressed with strong performances at No. 3. Because of those knocks, the team management decided to back Kishan at the top alongside Abhishek Sharma. This decision meant Samson had to wait for his opportunity.

India’s batting lineup also had several left-handed players at the top and middle order. With Abhishek Sharma and Ishan Kishan opening, and players like Shivam Dube, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh and Axar Patel in the lineup, opposition teams found ways to use spin against them. Eventually, the management decided to bring Samson back into the team during the Super Eight stage.

Gambhir Explains Tactical Decision Behind Samson’s Return

"More than the courage, it was a tactical change. More importantly, I don't think so me and the captain ever felt that Sanju was out of form. We always felt that after the New Zealand series that he needed a break. Sometimes it's good as a leadership group to give someone a break as well. Because you want to go off the pressure, and then you want to just clean up your head and all that stuff and then come back,” said Gambhir as quoted by Cricbuzz.

"Obviously, we had the luxury of playing different combinations as well. And that is the depth of that squad. We had Rinku batting at that number, and then we felt that probably we needed to break that three left-handers at the top; not from a point of view where we felt that off spinner was an issue. Trust me. It was never a discussion that the off spinner is going to create a lot of problems for our two left-handers at the top. We just felt that probably we can have someone with Sanju's ability and with that power at the top, and we can have three explosive guys at one, two and three. That was the reason. I don't think it was courage, it was tactical,” he added.

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Gambhir also praised Samson’s ability and the depth of the Indian squad. He said the team always believed in Samson’s talent, especially after seeing his performances during practice sessions.

"More importantly, the talent that we know that Sanju had and we knew that the way he was batting in the nets, there was no doubt that he's going to come in and deliver it for us. And how well has he delivered for us? I don't think I remember someone coming back and scoring that consistently in all the three games, or probably all the four games,” said Gambhir.

"I felt we are very blessed as a team and as a coach and captain for the amount of depth we have in that dressing room. Because we could have played three, four, five combinations. We could have played two wrist spinners. We could have played batsmen till number 8 - we could have had different combinations at the top. We had three openers who could bat any time at the top. So I felt that it was never about being courageous. It is also about being tactical,” he concluded.