Sanju Samson's Surreal T20 WC Win: "This is Going to Be Repeated"

Team India made history by securing a record-breaking third T20 World Cup title and becoming the first-ever team to defend the title and win it as a home nation following a brilliant 96-run win over New Zealand at Ahmedabad's Narendra Modi Stadium.

Samson shared that while he had long dreamed of winning a World Cup, his journey followed its own unpredictable path, likening it to a movie. The turning point for him came during the Zimbabwe game, when he shifted focus from personal performance to fulfilling the team's needs.

"Not yet, I am still like, when I get up in the morning, I'm like, 'has it really happened'. So honestly, that's the feeling. But I feel that in the coming years, with the quality of players we have in our country, this is going to be repeated. The number of players who are coming up, and definitely India is going to do this more and more often. You can only dream where you want to go, but you can't definitely ride the path towards it," he said. "So my life or my career has been one of the best examples. I definitely wanted to do this a couple of years ago," Samson said about the T20 World Cup win as per ESPNcricinfo.

"I want to win a World Cup for my country, but it had its own plan, its own script. So, but more like a movie. I enjoyed it. As I said before, I wanted to do something like this, then I got pulled out of my journey, and then suddenly, the team wanted me to come and contribute, and that's when I actually mentally flipped a bit... I think, before that, in the New Zealand series, the focus was all about me. But in the World Cup, the focus is all about the team, what the team requires. And in the Zimbabwe game, right from that moment, everyone wanted me to contribute. I had a role to play," he added.

Samson scripted a comeback for ages during the recently-concluded T20 World Cup as he battled inconsistency and benching to emerge as India's leading run-getter in the tournament, delivering clutch performances when it mattered the most, with a string of half-centuries from the virtual quarterfinal against West Indies to the title clash against New Zealand.

Samson amassed 321 runs in five innings at an average of 80.25 and a strike rate of 199.37, hitting 27 fours and 24 sixes and ended as the third-highest run-getter in the T20 WC. He also surpassed Virat Kohli's total of 319 runs in the 2014 T20WC edition to have the most runs by an Indian during a single T20WC edition.

India ace speedster Mohammed Siraj described the triumph as a "miracle" from a personal point of view, as he was not part of the initial squad for the tournament and was included only as a replacement for the injured Harshit Rana.

"I was not in the initial squad, then I got it, played a game, and now I have been part of two World Cup-winning squads. I would say it's a miracle for me," Siraj said.

- ANI