T20 World Cup 2026: ‘More than courage, it was a tactical change’ - Gautam Gambhir on backing Sanju Samson
"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," said Gambhir.
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Indian head coach Gautam Gambhir stated that the decision to back Sanju Samson mid-tournament was more tactical than courageous. Samson, who had played only one of India’s first five matches in the T20 World Cup 2026, returned to the side in the Super Eight clash against Zimbabwe and went on to score three consecutive fifties, ultimately winning the Player of the Tournament award.
The wicketkeeper-batter was initially expected to open for India in the World Cup. However, during the lead-up series against New Zealand, Ishan Kishan delivered brilliant knocks at No. 3 in the bilateral series, prompting the management to choose Kishan over Samson to open alongside Abhishek Sharma.
With two left-handers opening and the presence of Shivam Dube, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, and Axar Patel, opposition teams were able to exploit India’s spin resources effectively. Gambhir clarified that the decision to bring Samson back into the line-up was not intended to counter match-ups; rather, Samson had simply been given a short break from a few matches.
"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.
Forward-thinking Gambhir shifts focus towards 2027 CWC
Gambhir conceded that Samson’s performances in the nets left no doubt about his ability to deliver for the team. He also mentioned that the squad is blessed with a lot of depth, allowing various combinations to be tried. He emphasised that the decision was not about courage but purely about tactical planning.
"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.
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