With the pressure of 50,597 clad in blue packed into the stands at Eden Gardens, and the weight of a nation on their shoulders, Samson played a stellar hand for an India team bidding to defend the trophy they won in 2024. <\/p>\n
This would have been the kind of chase that Virat Kohli would have masterfully approached in the past – one where temperament was as pertinent a factor as talent.<\/p>\n
Samson toppled the pillars of the West Indies bowling attack in a methodical manner – expertly picking his moments to attack and increase the tempo of the chase with ruthless calculation.<\/p>\n
There were four sixes but the the risk-free control of 12 fours, which barely got off the carpet, emphasised T20 cricket’s most important muscle is the mind not the bicep.<\/p>\n
Samson’s deftness to use the crease to arrow square drives through backward point were particularly eye-catching.<\/p>\n
“I have been playing this format for a long time and learning from the greats like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma,” Samson said in his post-match interview after being named player of the match.<\/p>\n
“It is important to observe. I never felt I would do something like this. This is one of the greatest days of my life.”<\/p>\n
Samson has three T20 international hundreds to his name but the career of the Kerala man – who studied an English literature degree – has been a tale of the unexpected after periods in and out of the India side.<\/p>\n
In fact this was just his third match of the World Cup following modest returns of 22 and 24 against Zimbabwe and Namibia.<\/p>\n
After he had whipped Shepherd over the square-leg boundary for six, Samson chipped the West Indies seamer over the head of mid-on to seal a memorable victory and possibly the iconic moment of his career.<\/p>\n
He then fell to his knees, crossed himself and looked to the heavens. <\/p>\n
While Samson is not necessarily Kohli’s heir, he had got India across the line by a hair’s breadth in the manner of the India batting legend.<\/p>\n
“It means the whole world to me. From the day I started playing, this is the day I was waiting for. I have had a special journey and doubted myself at times, but I kept believing,” Samson added.<\/p>\n
England are next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the pressure of 50,597 clad in blue packed into the stands at Eden Gardens, and the weight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-453632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}