‘I’ve decided to play on my terms’: Samson on quitting India selection ‘rat race’
4 min readJul 28, 2026 09:05 AM Four months since steering India to T20 World Cup glory with his sensational knockout performances, Sanju Samson was supposed to build on the success at home, but has instead fallen out of the national side once again.
Over a decade has passed since his international debut and his subsequent stop-start journey that eventually culminated in his first major contribution for the national side, earning him the Player of the Series award at the T20 World Cup. But the 31-year-old Samson revealed that he was done chasing the national team selection shortly before the World Cup when his batting form had hit a wall.
“I realised that there is a constant rat race in our country, and I decided before the 2026 T20 World Cup that I would not be part of it. I just want to enjoy the game. God’s grace, I have achieved a lot. I am 31 now, and I have a few years left. So, I have decided to play on my own terms. No one will tell me how to bat or what to do. Sanju will decide for Sanju,” Samson told in a JioHotstar interview.
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Samson revealed that he will play out the rest of his professional career on his terms, stating that the returns of the 2026 World Cup had marked a cycle of fulfillment.
“With all due respect, I will play, enjoy the game, be a good teammate, and support the group, but I will do it my way. After the 2024 World Cup, I didn’t even expect to play in the 2026 World Cup. I wasn’t in the 14- or 15-man squad at one point. So how can I plan for 2028? If I’m there, if the team needs me, and if I’m playing well, things will fall into place. If not, I am deeply grateful. No one can take this achievement away from me,” he said.
World Cup turnaround
Samson steered India past the West Indies in a must-win Super 8 match with an unbeaten 97 and backed it up with tall half-centuries in the semi-final against England and New Zealand. The Kerala batter in turn took down two of his key nemesis in Jofra Archer and Mitchell Santner in subsequent games.Story continues below this ad
“When you score runs for the Indian team, you become more responsible, knowing you have to keep scoring. Ahead of the T20 World Cup semi-final against England, our top order wasn’t firing much. A lot of people were coming and telling me, ‘It’s England, Archer is bowling, he got you out 3-4 times previously, this happened, that happened.’ But I was confident. I didn’t say anything out loud. If you talk too much, you come across as arrogant, and that goes against my belief. So, I just gestured quietly, ‘Yeah, we’ll see.’ But I had my plans ready. I knew that this Sanju Samson was not the Sanju Samson from a year ago. After that West Indies knock, I had a lot of self-validation, and I was very sure about myself. There was no room for doubt. I was going to do it for my country, and no one could stop it,” the Chennai Super Kings batter added.
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“When you are confident, you don’t mind taking your time. I played an over against Santner where I faced four dot balls in a World Cup final. But I was completely sure that even if I faced four dot balls there, I could hit two sixes later from the other end. I had absolute clarity.”
Samson featured in four matches on India’s disastrous tour to Ireland and England, scoring 35 runs before being omitted from the T20I squad that tour Zimbabwe. Taking his spot, teenage sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and Abhishek Sharma paired up top in the series that India swept 3-0.
