This one is for anyone who has ever felt behind.
Behind in their career. Behind in life. Watching others get the opportunities they worked just as hard for. Sitting in rooms where everyone else seems to belong except them.
This one is for anyone who has kept going anyway.
Because sport, at its very best, is not just about who wins. It is about what it costs to get there. And sometimes the most powerful victories are the ones that took the longest to arrive.
Sanju Samson knows something about that.
THE YEARS IN BETWEEN
For most of his international career, Samson existed in a difficult space. Too good to be ignored. Not quite trusted enough to be relied upon.
Kerala had known what he was capable of for years. The IPL did too. But Indian cricket is unforgiving in a particular way. The queue is long. The competition is ruthless. And for a long time, the timing simply never worked in his favour.
India vs West Indies: Scorecard | Highlights
He was picked and dropped. Recalled and overlooked. Always on the edge of something. Never quite inside it.
The lowest point came quietly. No drama. No falling out. Just a seat in the dugout at the 2024 T20 World Cup. A tournament he traveled to. A tournament he did not play in. Not once.
He sat there and watched India lift the trophy.
Sit with that for a moment. To be that close. To be in the building. To be part of the squad and still feel entirely on the outside of it.
Most people would have quietly walked away from it all. Convinced themselves it was not meant to be. Found a reason to stop believing.
Sanju Samson came back.
THE NIGHT EVERYTHING CHANGED
When he walked out to bat against West Indies, India needed a record chase. The kind that silences dressing rooms.
He did not flinch.
What followed was not a flashy innings. It was a constructed one. Calm and deliberate. He respected the good balls and made the bad ones pay. When wickets fell around him he steadied. When the required rate climbed, he answered. After reaching his fifty he did not celebrate. He walked back to his mark, scratched his guard, and reset.
Still so much to do.
He finished unbeaten on 97 off 50 balls. In doing so he broke Virat Kohli’s record for the highest score by an Indian in a T20 World Cup chase. The man he had spent years watching from the dugout. Learning from. Waiting behind.
When the winning shot went, the crowd erupted.
And Sanju Samson fell to his knees. Hands raised to the sky. Thanking the Almighty. Finally allowing himself to feel something he had been holding back for a very long time.
In the presentation after, his voice was quiet but steady. “I’ve kept on doubting myself,” he said. “Kept on thinking, what if, what if, can I make it? But I kept on believing.”
The whole journey in three sentences.
Here is the thing about Samson’s story that deserves to be said clearly. The innings was special. The record was remarkable. But neither of those is the real achievement.
The real achievement is everything that came before. The years of quiet persistence. The mornings of not knowing. The dugout at the World Cup. The choice, made over and over again, to believe when belief was the hardest thing to hold onto.
That is not a small thing. That is everything.
Cricket will move on. It always does. Another series, another tournament, another name, another moment will take over the conversation soon enough.
But for one night in Kolkata, under those lights, it all belonged to him.
He did not arrive early. He did not make it look easy. Perhaps that is what makes him so popular and loved among the fans.
But he made it.
And if you have ever felt behind, if you have ever sat on the outside of something you worked hard to be part of, if you have ever kept going when the easier thing was to stop then you already understand exactly why that mattered.
This one was for you too.
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