Former India cricketer Sunil Gavaskar applauded Sanju Samson’s sensible and patient approach at the start of the innings before switching gears in the second T20I against Afghanistan as well. The opener scored a quick 57 off just 22 balls in India’s seven-wicket win at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Tuesday, September 15 as well.

“It’s sometimes the consistency that you want and because the openers get most of the strike in a 20-over game, they have the most opportunities to score. Sometimes, like today, he played himself in and he started hammering the balls only later. If he keeps on doing that, I don’t think he’ll ever fail. He’ll keep on getting 50s and 60s every time,” he told the broadcasters (via India Today). “It’s only when he looks to try and go bang-bang from the first ball, and then you have to do that if you’re chasing 190 or 200, then there is no option of doing that. But he’s a terrific player.”

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However, Sanju Samson has had a low phase since playing a key role in Team India’s historic T20 World Cup 2026 success. He also featured at the start of the Ireland and England tour before being dropped for young Vaibhav Suryavanshi and was dropped for the Zimbabwe series as well.

“Running the Indian team is not an easy task. You see a 15-year-old boy who has come after scoring 700-800 runs. My tournament was before that. After that, he performed so well, and he had to come in some way or another. I did not perform in two or three games, he was in form, and we wanted to win games in that series. It was very understandable from a leadership point of view,” Sanju Samson said during the post-match press conference.