Vaibhav’s ‘entry’ opened the door of ‘exit’ for Sanju, is Samson’s career going to end, out after 3 matches, indications are visible

New Delhi. It was just a few months ago, when Sanju Samson played a key role in making the Indian team the champion by playing historic innings in the T20 World Cup 2026. He was awarded the title of ‘Player of the Tournament’ on the basis of his explosive 89 runs against England in the semi-finals and then his match-winning innings of 89 runs against New Zealand in the final. The whole country was echoing with the slogans of Sanju-Sanju but after winning the World Cup, destiny took such a turn that he could play only three matches.

He flopped badly in two matches on the Ireland tour (5 runs in the first match and zero in the second) and then got out after scoring only 1 run in the first T20 match of the series against England. This poor spell of just 3 innings (5, 0, 1) broke the patience of the team management and the result was that Sanju Samson’s name was completely omitted from the T20I team of the upcoming Zimbabwe tour. Prabhsimran Singh of Punjab Kings has got a chance in his place.

Did Vaibhav Suryavanshi’s entry show the way to his exit?

The biggest twist in this entire incident came when 15-year-old young sensation Vaibhav Suryavanshi got a chance to make his international debut for Team India in the second T20 match against England. This young batsman coming from Samastipur, Bihar achieved the distinction of playing for India at the youngest age by breaking the 37-year-old record of Sachin Tendulkar. For this entry of Vaibhav Suryavanshi, Sanju Samson was suddenly sacrificed from the playing eleven. Although Vaibhav could score only 14 runs in his debut match, seeing the ‘red hot form’ and aggressive style of this player, who scored 776 runs in IPL 2026, the think-tank of head coach Gautam Gambhir has started looking towards the future. There is a strong discussion in the cricket circles whether this stormy entry of Vaibhav Suryavanshi has opened the way for the always unlucky Sanju Samson’s exit forever?

Is career really over?

The biggest weakness of Sanju Samson’s career has been his ‘instability’. When he gets going, he single-handedly wins the match (like he did in the T20 World Cup), but his string of flops also goes on for a long time. However, the career of this 31-year-old wicketkeeper-batsman cannot be considered completely over yet. The doors of comeback in the Indian team are never closed. Another brilliant performance in domestic cricket and IPL can get Sanju Samson the blue jersey again but it is also true that the emergence of youngsters like Vaibhav Suryavanshi, Abhishek Sharma and Prabhsimran Singh has now made the path ahead for Sanju very difficult and thorny. The cricket world seems divided over Sanju Samson being dropped from the team on the basis of just 3 bad matches.

Veterans like former Indian cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar and Ambati Rayudu have strongly criticized this decision. Manjrekar even wrote on social media, “Samson Drop?? Are you kidding me! This is a very strange decision. Veterans believe that the player who was the biggest hero of the World Cup till some time back, should have boosted his confidence by giving him continuous opportunities, and not immediately shown him the way out of the team.