"Felt that there's a lot he can deliver": Gautam Gambhir explains why he backed Sanju Samson

In an exclusive interview with ANI, Gambhir said he backed Sanju Samson because he believed the batter has a lot to offer the team, adding that a lean patch is temporary and referring to his struggles with the bat during the New Zealand series before the T20 World Cup.

"I backed him because I felt that there's a lot that Sanju Samson can deliver for the team, and it was never about that. Sometimes, people go through a lean run. I think in the series against New Zealand, he went through a lean run, but that was fine because it's not like your bad form will always remain. So he needed that break. We gave him a couple of games off, and obviously, once he got back, we knew that he was going to deliver for us because we have seen his talent for a long time. If a player makes 3 T20S 100s, if he goes through a lean patch, that is acceptable. But I feel he has done justice, and hopefully he can kickstart his career again from now on, and that is important for him," Gambhir said.

Samson scripted a comeback for ages during the recently-concluded T20 World Cup as he battled inconsistency and benching to emerge as India's leading run-getter in the tournament, delivering clutch performances when it mattered the most, with a string of half-centuries from the virtual quarterfinal against West Indies to the title clash against New Zealand.

In an interview with ANI, Gambhir said he is hopeful that Sanju can "kickstart" his career again after his empathic performance in the T20 World Cup.

Team India made history by securing a record-breaking third T20 World Cup title and becoming the first-ever team to defend the title and win it as a home nation following a brilliant 96-run win over New Zealand at Ahmedabad's Narendra Modi Stadium on Sunday.

Samson amassed 321 runs in five innings at an average of 80.25 and a strike rate of 199.37, hitting 27 fours and 24 sixes and ended as the third-highest run-getter in the T20 WC. He also surpassed Virat Kohli's total of 319 runs in the 2014 T20WC edition to have the most runs by an Indian during a single T20WC edition.

While the entire cricketing world had their eyes on world number one T20 batter Abhishek Sharma, recently returned Ishan Kishan and skipper Suryakumar Yadav as India's potential top run-getter and 'X-Factors', Samson's domineering presence and authoritative strokeplay proved decisive.

Before these three knockout punches were delivered to West Indies, England and New Zealand, Samson was not having the best of times. After a horrid series against New Zealand, scoring just 46 runs in five matches, he lost his place as a primary wicketkeeper-batter to Ishan.

When he was given chances initially during the tournament, he did play high-impact knocks of 22 and 24 against Namibia (in the group stage) and Zimbabwe (super eights), respectively, but could not convert his starts into something massive.

However, Samson saved his best for the last to have one of the finest T20WC campaigns ever by a player in terms of pure stats and the circumstances during which his runs came. Just when his team was fighting for survival following a 76-run loss to South Africa, Samson single-handedly infused a new life into the team.

Gambhir also reflected on India's T20 WC victory. He said that the win was about building a fearless team, and all the players were focused on playing with bravery and courage, and it paid off in crunch matches.

"This journey wasn't just for the World Cup. In the last year and a half, when we started the entire process of preparing for the next World Cup, there was only one thing on my mind: how can we give ourselves the best chance to win the World Cup, and for that, the most important thing was whether we would be the most fearless team in the world. I know many people have talked about fearless, courage, bravery, but ultimately, in ICC tournaments, and when there are crunch matches, must-win matches, how courageous can we be?" Gambhir said.

"That decides how many chances we were giving ourselves to win the World Cup. For me, the most important thing was that you pick up the match against Zimbabwe, the West Indies, and then the semi-final and final. In that, I think the way the team played with bravery, the way we made runs, shows that what we talked about in the last year and a half, we were able to implement that on the cricket field," Gambhir added. (ANI)