New Delhi, March 15 (IANS) Sanju Samson, India’s Player of the Tournament in the 2026 Men’s T20 World Cup triumph, said he still wakes up each morning struggling to believe the side won the trophy on home soil, but is certain the country's conveyor belt of talent means more days of winning trophies will come again and again in the years ahead.
"Not yet, I am still like, when I get up in the morning, I'm like, 'has it really happened'. So honestly, that's the feeling. But I feel that in the coming years, with the quality of players we have in our country, this is going to be repeated. The number of players who are coming up in India is definitely going to do this more and more often," said Samson to broadcasters on the sidelines of the BCCI awards in New Delhi on Sunday.
Samson was named Player of the Tournament for scoring 321 runs at a strike rate of nearly 200 in just five innings despite not being part of the starting line-up. He delivered scores of 97 not out in the must-win Super Eight match against West Indies, before hitting 89 each in the semi-final against England and final against New Zealand.
"You can only dream where you want to go, but you can't definitely ride the path towards it. So my life or my career has been one of the best examples. I definitely wanted to do this a couple of years ago. I want to win a World Cup for my country, but it had its own plan, its own script. So, it's more like a movie. I enjoyed it.
"As I said before, I wanted to do something like this, then I got pulled out of my journey, and then suddenly, the team wanted me to come and contribute, and that's when I actually mentally flipped a bit... I think, before that, in the New Zealand series, the focus was all about me.
"But in the World Cup, the focus is all about the team, what the team requires. And in the Zimbabwe game, right from that moment, everyone wanted me to contribute. I had a role to play. So that's when the shift happened and the confidence that, okay, 'the team needs you, Sanju', and let's do what you can to the best. So that's where everything started from.
"And then I had the experience, I was working mentally. I was working physically, so I knew that I was ready, and I knew that this was meant for me, so I just had to do what I know best," he elaborated.
Samson was not the only against-the-odds story to emerge from India's triumph. Pace bowler Mohammed Siraj was not part of the original squad and only joined as a replacement for the injured Harshit Rana, describing his own journey to a second T20 World Cup winners' medal in believable terms. "I was not in the initial squad, then I got it, played a game, and now I have been part of two World Cup-winning squads. I would say it's a miracle for me," he said.
--IANS
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