Three Single-Digit Scores, Then 115 off 56 Balls: Sanju Samson Silences Every Critic and Makes CSK History at Chepauk

Three innings of single figures — 6, 7 and 9. A franchise in freefall, an opening partnership that had not clicked once, and a Chepauk crowd that needed something to believe in. Then Sanju Samson walked out on Saturday evening and turned the entire narrative of CSK’s IPL 2026 season upside down in 56 balls.

Three Bad Games, One Brilliant Response

The context makes this century richer than the runs alone suggest. Samson had been CSK’s most expensive and most high-profile acquisition heading into IPL 2026 — traded from Rajasthan Royals in one of the tournament’s defining transfers. He arrived as the T20 World Cup 2026’s Player of the Tournament. He scored 9, 4, and 9 in CSK’s first three matches — all of which they lost. Every IPL camera angle that found him in the dugout found a batter who looked uncomfortable and under pressure.

On Saturday at Chepauk, the real Sanju Samson showed up.

Delhi Capitals won the toss, chose to bowl, and invited CSK to bat in conditions that — if their attack could land their lines — would test both openers. Samson and Ruturaj Gaikwad put on 62 for the first wicket — Gaikwad’s 15 off 18 balls looking rusty, Samson looking anything but. He brought up his fifty in 32 balls. By the time he reached his century — in the 18th over, off just 52 deliveries — the Chepauk crowd was on its feet, chanting his name.

> “Entire stadium is chanting Sanju! Sanju.”

He finished unbeaten on 115 off 56 balls — 11 fours and four sixes, strike rate 205.36. A 113-run partnership with Ayush Mhatre (59 off 36, retired out) and a late flourish from Shivam Dube (20* off 10) took CSK to 212/2.

The Records That Came With the Runs

Samson’s century was not just a match-winning innings — it arrived wrapped in cricket history.

He became the first batter to score centuries for three different IPL franchises — Delhi Capitals (2017), Rajasthan Royals (2019 and 2021), and now Chennai Super Kings.

His earlier three IPL centuries by franchise:

He also became the fourth Indian batter to hit 400 or more sixes in T20 cricket, joining a list that reads like a greatest-of-generation collection. More remarkably, Samson’s six-hitting rate of 1.26 sixes per innings is the best among the quartet — ahead of Suryakumar Yadav (1.25), Rohit Sharma (1.22) and Virat Kohli (1.10).

DC’s Match: Another Last-Over Collapse

Delhi Capitals needed 213 off 20 overs — a target within reach at a venue where the pitch was historically flat and the dew in the evening made batting easier. KL Rahul and Pathum Nissanka gave them a blazing start — Nissanka smashing 20 off 11 balls in the first two overs to suggest a chase was very much on.

But the innings fell short where it needed to be decisive. DC finished on 209/8 — one run short of the DLS-adjusted target, going down in eerily similar fashion to their one-run defeat to Gujarat Titans five days earlier. David Miller again made 41 not out. Again he declined a single off the penultimate delivery. Again DC fell short by the smallest possible margin.

The ghost of Arun Jaitley Stadium had followed DC to Chepauk.

CSK’s First Win — and No Dhoni Yet

For Chennai Super Kings, it was finally, mercifully, their first victory of IPL 2026 — having lost their opening four matches and sitting stranded at the bottom of the table. Chepauk had delivered, Samson had delivered, and even the absence of MS Dhoni — whose return remains unconfirmed — felt slightly less urgent on a night like this.

The partnership between Samson and Mhatre (113 runs) was the second-highest for CSK vs DC for any wicket in IPL history, behind the 141-run Conway-Gaikwad stand in Delhi in 2023.