Sanju Samson has been the tournament’s best player, according to former Pakistan captain Rashid Latif, who said that his innings against England resembled a computer batting against bowlers. In the T20 World Cup 2026 semi-final match against England on March 5 at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium, the wicketkeeper-batter scored 89 from 42 balls.
Samson got the final laugh as the Men in Blue won by seven runs to advance to the final, despite Jacob Bethell scoring 105 for England. The right-handed hitter had earlier in the competition scored 97* against the West Indies in the Super Eight match, which was essentially a quarterfinal.
“Sanju Samson jis tarah se batting kia hai, aisa laga jaise computer batting kar raha tha. (The way Sanju Samson batted, it felt like a computer was batting). What spinner or what pacers. He got the momentum so fast especially after getting dropped by Harry Brook. and then he does the wicketkeeping in the match silently. We did not even get to know,” said Latif on the show Haarna Mana Hai.
“He is a fantastic composed player and the way he carried on the momentum in both the matches (against West Indies and England), in my eyes, Sanju Samson should be the player of the tournament. The way he has played cricket, we all have been astonished. And the credit goes to the Indian team management that they trusted him even after his loss of form. And Sanju Samson has delivered with a punch.”
Rashid Latif
Ahmed Shehzad, a former cricket player for Pakistan, emphasized how the Indian batsmen worked hard to get more than 250 runs, saying that if it had been the Pakistani team, they could have settled for a number closer to 225. Sanju Samson’s 89 with significant cameos from Shivam Dube, Ishan Kishan, Hardik Pandya, and Tilak Varma helped India record 253/7 in the end.
“It was a very close match. Any team could have won it. I guess India benefits from the kind of infrastructure they have built. IPL and all prepare the players for such stages. It has benefitted them a lot. They way their players absorb pressure, it helps them to get past the crush moments. They were clear that on that kind of pitch, they had to get past 250 runs. Sanju Samson was phenomenal but then the batsman who came at the later stage also played like that,” said Shehzad.
“The kind of shots Tilak Verma played against jofra Archer were phenomenal too. Tilak knows that two fielders are up and Jofra Archer will bowl a Yorker at the wicket and Tilak pre-mediated his shot and made the yorker a full toss with going back and hitting the six. The second six he hit, it came as he knew that Jofra Archer would bowl a slow one or a short one and he hit the six. If it was Pakistan, we would have finished on 225 and would have put the onus on our bowling. But the Indian batsman knew that on that pitch, they needed to get past 250. And that’s what won them the semi-final,” he added.
