Sanju Samson Opens Up on Missing T20 World Cup Centuries

Sanju Samson scored 321 runs in five innings in the T20 World Cup and explained his mindset about personal milestones and focusing on the team’s success.

India wicketkeeper-batter Sanju Samson delivered a standout performance in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026. Opening the batting, he scored 321 runs in 5 matches and won the Player of the Tournament award.

Samson produced crucial innings during the knockout stage. He remained unbeaten on 97 from 50 balls against West Indies in the Super 8. He then scored 89 from 42 balls against England in the semi-final. He followed it with another 89 from 46 balls against New Zealand in the final.

In all 3 key matches, Samson came close to reaching a century. However, he missed the milestone each time. A hundred would have made him only the second Indian, after Suresh Raina, to score a T20 World Cup century. Samson later stated that he focused on helping the team rather than chasing personal records.

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“Thinking about my three hundreds, which people say I missed out on, so I think ‘nahi yaar, usse bahut bada kaam hua hai.’ Like, I absolutely contributed really well; I kind of feel that. Definitely mai aise nahi bolunga ki maine 100 ke baare mein socha hi nahi (I definitely won’t say that I didn’t think about 100). As a human being, aa he jaata hai ki nahi, yaar, ek 100 lag jaye, maja aajaayega. So you definitely thought about it, but those thoughts came in, and then I told myself, ‘Yaar, tere run abhi tak bane kaise hai?’,” Samson was quoted as saying by India Today.

“You didn’t think about 100 when you started to play. So I respected the process which was giving me runs, and I just stuck to the plan. No matter 80-90 kuch bhi ho, you just have to be in the process, and the process was team first. So every decision was taken ki bhai, abhi team ko kya chahiye,” he added.

Team-First Culture Under Gautam Gambhir

After the final, head coach Gautam Gambhir had put forward a team-first approach. He highlighted that personal milestones hold no importance in the current setup. Sanju Samson later supported the same philosophy. He said the idea became clear during earlier team discussions. The squad focused only on what the team required in each situation.

“He (Gambhir) is very true to that; I think Abhi (Abhishek Sharma) would agree with me. Like, these are the constant conversation points which we have written down in the team meetings. Right from the Sri Lanka series, where Surya and Gautam Bhai were the leaders of the Indian team. Right from that moment it was very clear – there is no personal milestone. So that’s how we all adapted, and that’s how our character also got aligned to the team’s actual starting point,” Samson concluded.