Sanju Samson's 2026 has shaped up like a script usually meant for dramatic, formulaic movies with enough troughs and crests to keep you emotionally invested all through. As recently as January 31, he cut a desolate figure in front of his home crowd in Thiruvananthapuram as Ishan Kishan snatched his World Cup spot as the opener-keeper.

Samson had endured a batting slump since the start of 2025, and had to deal with being shunted to the middle-order to accommodate Shubman Gill briefly. The selectors reversed that call and reinstated him at the top, but runs still eluded him and Kishan was there to nudge him out with the kind of batting devastation this team has sought all through this World Cup cycle.

So right there, on a harrowing night on his home turf, he watched his dream of featuring in a T20 World Cup slip away from between his fingers just before the tournament. "I think right after the New Zealand series, I was broken. I was completely out of my mind. I was like 'okay, my dreams have shattered. What else can I do?,'" Samson said.

But these words came on a much happier Sunday night, where he completed the full circle from dejection to elation - with the third of his dream World Cup nights culminating in India winning it.

Samson expectedly started the World Cup on the bench and came in only when he had to fill in for an ill Abhishek Sharma in one group game. The bib was back on once Abhishek recovered. But India's left-only top-three struggled against off-spin, pushing them to break that up by bringing Samson back into the mix.

There were signs of a more confident Samson latching onto his chance this time, when he got a swift 24 off 15 against Zimbabwe. The real restoring of his batting powers came at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata, where he tonked a 50-ball 97 in a virtual knockout game against West Indies. Once the big runs began to come, they refused to stop. England bore the brunt in the semi-final and New Zealand watched balls fly in the final as he signed off from the World Cup with 89 (42) and 89 (46).

In the afterglow of a night like this, Samson also revealed that during last year's tour of Australia, when he found himself out of the Indian side, his soul-searching led him to reach out to Sachin Tendulkar.

"From (the) last couple of months, I have been in constant touch with Sachin sir. I think when I was sitting out in Australia, I thought 'what is the mindset required now?' So, I reached out to sir and I had huge, huge, big conversations with him," Samson said.

"And yesterday also, he called me up to check (on) how am I feeling. So, I think getting a guidance from someone like him, what more can I ask for?," he added.

At the end, Samson had only gratitude for how it all turned out. The India batter had already seen a T20 World Cup win from really close quarters - but as a member of the squad in 2024 when he didn't play a game.

"But God had different plans. I think I suddenly came back into the crucial games and I did what I could for my country," Samson said. "It feels like a dream. Out of words, out of emotions. I'm just going through it, so it feels a bit surreal. To be very honest, it all started one to two years before.

"When I was with the 2024 World Cup-winning team in West Indies, I couldn't play a game. I kept on visualising. I kept on dreaming. I kept on working. This is exactly what I wanted to do then."