Sanju Samson has been one of the most intriguing paradoxes in Indian cricket for more than ten years. He is a batter with exceptional grace and talent, yet his T20I career has been characterized by perplexing inconsistency. His recent sequence of low scores in his first three games versus New Zealand—10, 6, and 0—also portrays a dismal picture.
His forgettable form becomes even more striking when his closest rival Ishan Kishan’s Midas Touch captivates both fans and commentators. Statistics and data are two different things, however they are frequently mistaken for one another. The latter attempts to identify the patterns by examining the former, whilst the former provides a linear view.
Samson has amassed 1048 runs at a strike rate of 147 or higher in 55 Twenty20 Internationals over the course of 11 years, with three fifties and three hundreds—two of which occurred on South African soil in late 2024. His strike rate is 131 against Australia, 118 against England, and 113 against New Zealand.
Since Samson opened in 2025, a few tendencies have surfaced. In five straight games at the beginning of last year, England bowled fast and short onto his body, forcing him to play a frantic pull shot with little time or force at all.
Both Kyle Jamieson and Matt Henry, who both bowl in the mid-130s, bowled straight lines or the leg-middle line twice in 2026, preventing him from opening his arms on the off-side.
“Sanju has a bit of problem both on technical and mindset front. The bat-speed on his downswing is the same for bowlers with different speeds. It will fetch him success against bowlers in the 130 kmph mark,” PTI quoted former India opener WV Raman as saying.
When asked about whether problem is of technical nature or it is the mindset, Raman said, “But anything above or less than 130 kmph mark with variations in pace either way, will create issue. The solution is to adjust his bat-speed on the downswing according to the pace of the ball. Once he does that, he should be alright.”
“On the mental front, he knows that there is a lot of competition for the wicketkeeper-batter’s slot in white ball cricket. That’s all probably putting pressure on him because he still has enough talent to work this out. He is capable player and can deliver for India,” Raman said.
Raman does not, however, think that placing him in the middle order would have disrupted his flow because players of this generation enjoy being adaptable.
“In the T20Is, he is suited for top three and he shouldn’t have any issues on that front because that is where he can perform at his best. These days, these boys talk about adaptation and being able to bat anywhere. There shouldn’t be a problem unless you are sent extremely down the order,” Raman said.
Zubin Bharucha, the High Performance Director of the Rajasthan Royals, who has worked closely with Samson, stated that it has more to do with what’s going on in his head.
“There is nothing technical at all. It’s all in the mind for him. He oscillates from mercurial to average because of lack of clarity but it happens with everyone.
“Every player that’s played the game goes through this, he is no exception — Surya (Suryakumar Yadav) just recently. It’s just a matter of learning to manage it better,” the PTI report quoted Bharucha as saying.
Ravichandran Ashwin recently described how England bowled short and fast while New Zealand attacked him with straighter lines.
“In such situation, it’s just about hitting a few more balls in areas you feel might be weaker than your strength. He has been scoring a lot more runs on the off-side than on-side, deliberately,” Bharucha said.
“This is what all batters do, making the bowler bowl an off stump line but get into positions to score from that line. Now this immediately prompts the bowler to compensate and come inside (middle and leg) and from that position it should be easier and less risky to hit into the on-side. Sometimes when you overly set-up to open up the off-side, you can be a little out of position for the leg-side. Just requires a little more awareness around it because Samson already has the on-side shots.”
Talking about the solution, Bharucha responded: “Hit a few more balls in that area during practice. Ideally, constantly get the throwdown expert to move from the off stump line to the leg stump line.”
