Roughly 18 months ago, Sanju Samson made way for Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s IPL debut. Neither could have known then how intertwined their paths would get.
Sooryavanshi, 14 then, took his first steps in top-flight cricket when Rajasthan Royals lost their captain to an injury until nearly the fag end of the league stages of IPL 2025. Sooryavanshi repaid the faith almost immediately – with a century no less in just his third game. By the time Samson returned, the teenager had made enough of an impression for RR to keep him opening – and Samson, rather than reclaiming his spot, moved down to No. 3. As Sooryavanshi was fast-tracked to the Indian T20I set-up the following IPL, that mentor-protege relationship inevitably acquired a competitive edge. In India colours, the duo are fending for the same slot at the top of the order.
Against Afghanistan, at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, Samson found himself preferred ahead of the teenager. The right-hander responded to his failure in the series opener with a berserk 22-ball 57, while Sooryavanshi watched from the sidelines for the second game running – despite having bagged Player of the Series in Zimbabwe only a few weeks earlier.
For all the talk of competition, Samson insists there is no resentment within the group. “We may be competitors to the outside world, but we are a team and we are playing for a country and we want to win the game first,” Samson said after India sealed the three-match T20I series against Afghanistan 2-0 with a game to spare.
“We just have to be ready for our own opportunity. We can’t sulk that ‘oh, I didn’t get [the chance] or why did they give it to him’. Those kind of mindsets don’t work here.
“It is a very challenging place to be in. For the whole team management and everyone, from the captain, from the coach, from the selectors, it is a very tough choice. I totally understand, myself [having] led an IPL franchise. I know how hard these decisions are when everyone has been performing really well.”
Samson has spent years on both sides of selection calls, and now finds himself competing with a teenager whose rise has been extraordinary even by the standards of Indian cricket.
Sooryavanshi followed his breakthrough IPL season with an even better one – an Orange Cap-winning IPL 2026 at just 15, his second year in the competition – before finding himself fast-tracked into the national dressing room.
Samson, meanwhile, was the Player of the Tournament at the home T20 World Cup earlier this year. Benched at the start, he then overcame an indifferent start with successive scores of 97* (50 balls) and 89 each in semifinal and final as India became the first team to defend their T20 crown. But when Sooryavanshi was stealing all limelight with a 776-run season at an average of 48.5 and a scarcely believable strike-rate of 237.3, Samson had a feast-or-famine of a year at Chennai Super Kings.
Sooryavanshi has had to wait in the wings despite winning the PoTS against Zimbabwe. ©Getty
Then came the inevitable ebb and flow. Samson failed in three games – twice in Ireland as India lost the series 0-2, and again in the first T20I in England. The Sooryavanshi factor became too hard to ignore. The teenager had three games, and a rather rough initiation to international cricket against a quality opponent, before Samson returned for the final match of the series which the visitors eventually lost 0-4. Samson was then rested for Zimbabwe tour entirely, and Sooryavanshi thrived; collecting the Player of the Series award and seemingly nudging ahead in this race with his former IPL captain. But, in Delhi, the musical chairs saw another twist leading to yet another public conversation on team selections.
Samson let his bat do the talking and has, by now, developed a fairly modern coping mechanism for the noise around Indian cricket. “I try to turn off the Wi-Fi,” he quipped, leaving the room in splits.
It works until, as he admitted, “but sometimes the Wi-Fi comes back on and I see the comments of the senior players.”
Samson was equally candid about what happens when some of that noise also gets through.
“At first, it feels bad. I am not a machine. We are not robots that it wouldn’t affect us at all. It definitely matters, and you kind of get a bit affected,” he said.
Maturity, with age and experience, has taught him how to handle the criticism that follows every failure. He’s learnt to live with the peculiar demands of being an Indian cricketer, and also grasped the uncertainty that comes with the high-risk high-reward approach that’s a modern day prerequisite for a T20 opener. Consistency in results is not always guaranteed with his methods, but Samson’s solution to that is to not tweak anything with the approach.
“I think consistency in my process. I think consistency in my preparation, consistency in how I am practicing, how I am putting my hard yards in. That’s where I try to focus on. You can’t control the consistency in the result in this format… Consistency has to be in the frame of mind, and then whatever happens, happens. I think that’s what fearless mindset is.”
Samson’s acceptance of competition and faith in his own process is what allows the two to coexist, even when they are competing for the same spot. There’s still no guarantee about who will open the next game, or who will get the longer rope. Samson, despite being one of the two affected parties in this tussle, appears comfortable with it.
“You see, a 15-year-old boy has scored 700-800 runs. My Man of the Tournament award [at the 2026 World Cup] was before that. After that he’s performed so well. He had to come in [to the Indian set-up] sooner than later. I didn’t perform in 2-3 games and he was in-form and we wanted to win games in that [England] series.
“It is very understandable from a leadership [perspective]. I have been in this situation and I have taken tough calls as a captain for my IPL franchise,” he explained.
Samson credited the communication from India’s leadership group, particularly head coach Gautam Gambhir, for helping him navigate the tough calls that didn’t go in his favour.
“There was a lot of communication in the middle of the England series. He spoke to me a lot before this series as well… It’s very easy to take very popular decisions. But, as a leadership group, we have been taking some really tough calls keeping the team at the front. That’s where we have to give the credit to the leadership group of our team.”
For Samson, perhaps, that is the simplest way to view the situation and keep his head clear. Sooryavanshi’s rapid rise doesn’t necessarily mean his setback. His own failure does not have to be the only opportunity for the teenager he once groomed. On Tuesday, Samson made his case again with the bat. The next opportunity may still belong to Sooryavanshi.
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