Sanju Samson walked out to bat at Chepauk on Thursday as the man tasked with a specific mission — break the left-left opening combination that had been exploited ruthlessly in India’s 76-run loss to South Africa, and give Abhishek Sharma the platform to rediscover his flow. He did exactly that. Twenty-four runs off 15 balls, two sixes, one four, strike rate of 160 — and a 48-run opening stand in 23 balls that was India’s best of the tournament.

Then he top-edged a slog-pull to deep mid-wicket off Blessing Muzarabani, and Sunil Gavaskar watched with what sounded very much like exasperated familiarity.

“He will be disappointed because he has got out so many times in that region,” said the Little Master on-air on Jio Hotstar, delivering his assessment with the bluntness that has made him one of cricket’s most trusted analysts for four decades.

The Same Zone, The Same Outcome

Gavaskar didn’t just deliver a one-line verdict — he diagnosed exactly what went wrong. “Everybody knows — bowl short, have a deep square leg. And again, it is the height of Muzarabani that allowed the ball to bounce a little bit more. That’s why it wasn’t quite off the middle of the bat. And so he got off to a very good start, 24 off 15. But he’s holed out in the deep once again. And India have lost their first wicket at 48.”

The dismissal came in the fourth over. Muzarabani, one of the tallest bowlers in international cricket at 6’6", banged in a short ball that reared sharply. Samson moved into position for the pull — a shot he plays with genuine power when he times it — but the extra bounce off Muzarabani’s height caused a slight mistiming. The ball lobbed toward deep mid-wicket, where Ryan Burl took a clean catch. From Samson’s perspective, the ball did more than he expected. From Gavaskar’s perspective, the result was entirely predictable.

Ravi Shastri, commentating alongside Gavaskar, offered a simpler verdict: “He’ll be disappointed with that.” But both men knew this wasn’t a one-off disappointment.

A Pattern That Won’t Go Away

This is the part of Sanju Samson’s international career that refuses to resolve itself. His talent is unquestioned — the IPL’s most reliable franchise batter for Rajasthan Royals over nearly a decade, the man who scored back-to-back T20I centuries in 2024 against Bangladesh in Hyderabad and then South Africa in Durban. When Samson is on, he is among the most watchable batsmen in world cricket.

But Gavaskar had flagged the exact same technical flaw during the India vs Namibia group match earlier in this tournament. Then, his verdict was surgical: “Sanju Samson has a technical problem. He goes too deep in the crease and plays that flick shot. You can only hope he times it in the gap or it goes for a six.”

This is not a new conversation. During the England T20I series in early 2025, ESPNcricinfo published a detailed analysis of Samson’s dismissals on the pull across a 12-month period. The finding was stark — he had been dismissed in the deep multiple times in the same region by seam bowlers targeting his back-foot play. Former India opener Aakash Chopra put it plainly at the time: “Very rarely do you find a top class batter developing a pattern, especially in the shortest format of the game.”

The core technical issue, as identified by multiple analysts, is Samson going deep in the crease before the ball is delivered, closing his hips too early, which means when a tall bowler extracts extra bounce, his bat closes slightly and sends the ball skyward rather than flat into the stands.

The Case For and Against

Irfan Pathan offered the counter-argument from commentary. “Sanju played an innings for the team,” he noted, acknowledging that Samson’s role on Thursday was not to bat for 15 overs — it was to take the pressure off Abhishek, provide a brisk start, and ensure the powerplay was maximised against a Zimbabwe attack lacking variety. On that measurement, he succeeded.

The 48-run opening stand off 23 balls was India’s best opening partnership of the T20 World Cup. It immediately settled Abhishek, who went on to score 55 and finally break his catastrophic run of form. Without Samson’s aggressive intent at the other end — two sixes in the first four overs — Abhishek’s comeback fifty might have been a much more tentative affair.

Head coach Gautam Gambhir has repeatedly backed Samson’s high-risk approach. The logic is sound: in T20 cricket, batters who swing hard will sometimes miss. The problem isn’t the risk appetite — it’s when the dismissal comes from a predictable, repeatedly exploited technical weakness rather than a bowler simply outsmarting a batsman on the day.

The Bigger Question for Eden Gardens

Samson’s role going forward at this tournament is unclear. With the West Indies clash on Sunday at Eden Gardens confirmed as a winner-takes-all encounter, India’s selection puzzle becomes: does Samson keep his place as the right-handed counter to Abhishek at the top, or does the management revert to Ishan Kishan — who has more experience in big knockout games, even if his recent form has been inconsistent?

The answer likely depends on whether India want a right-left combination at the top against West Indies, and whether Roston Chase’s off-spin in the powerplay — identified by Abhishek Nayar as India’s key tactical vulnerability — demands that insurance of having a right-hander facing first.

If Samson plays, the advice from Gavaskar is simple and consistent: stop going deep in the crease, trust your front-foot game against the short ball, and don’t gift bowlers the boundary protection that has claimed your wicket so many times before. His talent is not in question. Whether he can suppress the most dangerous shot in his own repertoire when it matters most — that is the story that this World Cup has been asking, and one Chennai evening answered only partially.