INDIA it is by miles and miles. The short format T20 Fast Fad cricketing invincibles!
Indeed, Suryakumar Yadav’s new look team minus the super likes of Virat Kohli and former Captain Rohit Sharma, has ascended the very summit of cricket’s most fast TFT forward action packed white ball format. To a world record back to back titles in the wake of Sharma’s team winning it before.
Literally, standing atop world cricket’s moon, a pumped up, mainly fiery young pack. The new gun’s of the game. Built around a most unlikely hero. One man. Sanju Samson walked into the action midway from cold oblivion to swing the ICC 2026 T20 World Cup India’s way when it looked like the big cup was slipping away from their grasp following a bad super eight hounding at the hands of South Africa.
The overnight, most unlikely hero thrust from nowhere to taking up the charge when top gun Abhishek Sharma had fallen from the public gaze as the tournament’s instant hit No 1 bat slinger for a savagery that had made him world cricket’s Mr Daring with the bat.
But Indian hopes were blown when their whiz kid hit the fallible in a declining hollow of four consecutive ducks at the big show.
SANJU STEPS IN FROM THE COLD
Enter, the once unwanted Sanju Samson. More out of India’s desperation following a crash landing from early highs induced by a volatile Protea attack as the think tanks looked to a right-left combination upfront.
And, Samson proved to be more than the answer.
Rising like the mounting sun, he took on Sharma’s role, torching down bowling attacks at will that bewitched India’s very selectors who had put him down.
A fury reincarnated for a batter kicked out for lack of faith, Samson roared back with a vengeance all guns blazing in a game changing clanging.of three consecutive 50+ innings in a twinkle smashing up a threatening West Indies, England and finalists New Zealand to straddling the arena the new champion batsman of the world. A David turned Goliath.
By now, Samson had literally asserted himself as India’s trump card iron man.
That Samson went on to hold the show in a continuation of the thunder glory he had anointed himself to becoming India’s ‘you aim. I wont miss’ messiah going into the big show final was sensational by the magic element that had replaced the man looked down as a Mr. Nobody when India made its world cup call.
Came the final, Samson unwaveringly proved to be India’s ‘Cometh the hour, Cometh the Man’ leading the way by another scorching knock after being put in to bat by New Zealand at Ahmedabad’s Narendra Modi Stadium in what was perhaps cricket’s biggest blunder call by Tim Santner who had virtually handed India the world cup by his decision even before a ball had been bowled in a super eight countdown where every team that chased had been blown away.
The day, as in the previous last run ups belonged very much to Sanju Samson as he tore into the New Zealand attack. That his bat clanged in a riotous 89 insulating top score that did see Abhishek Sharma find his day at long last come into his own in the wonder boy dazzle he had been known for in a fittingly comeback fastest fifty in a T20 World Cup, the final at that, in a 98 first wicket bonding, was as rife on the big day.
ABHISHEK’S DAY AS MUCH
It was Sharma’s as much. A champion batsman silencing vociferous critics who had screamed for his blood. The red hot message that form is temporary, but class is permanent.
Adding the cherry to the champagne fortunes was the mightily gangling hulk that is the incredibly devastating seasoned campaigner Jasprit Bumrah holding the side together. The death overs destructor that left no width for the Kiwis to budge in that final strangulation. The hulk from the days of Kohli and Sharma. India’s last wall of defence.