Sanju Samson's margin for failure shrinks as 15-year-old Vaibhav Sooryavanshi waits impatiently outside India's XI

Sanju Samson had already found two boundaries, and India were hardly under pressure. Chasing 157 against Afghanistan in Delhi, there was time for the opener to settle into an innings that could strengthen his hold on a position that has suddenly become fiercely contested. Instead, eight balls into his comeback, Samson attempted to pull Azmatullah Omarzai and found the fielder in the deep. Ten runs, another start gone, and another opportunity left incomplete.

On most nights, it would have been a relatively insignificant dismissal in a chase India eventually completed with seven wickets and 38 balls to spare. Abhishek Sharma's brutal 82 off 32 balls made sure of that, while Ishan Kishan contributed 42. For Samson, however, the circumstances surrounding those 10 runs made them considerably more important.

India had chosen him ahead of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi . That decision itself represented considerable faith in Samson. Sooryavanshi had walked into the Afghanistan series after scoring 50 off 19, 20 off nine and 81 off 49 in three T20Is against Zimbabwe. The last of those innings had earned him the Player of the Match award. Yet when India picked their XI in Delhi, the 15-year-old was left out, and Samson was restored alongside Abhishek at the top.

Samson, therefore, wasn't simply being given another game. India had moved aside one of the most exciting young batters in world cricket to make room for him. That changes the value of every opportunity he gets.

There is an important distinction to make here. One failure should not put Samson's place in danger. Only six months ago, he produced arguably the finest tournament of his international career, scoring 321 runs in five innings as India won the 2026 T20 World Cup. His average of 80.25 and strike rate of 199.37 earned him the Player of the Tournament award. Those numbers alone provide a compelling argument for patience.

But inconsistency has repeatedly complicated Samson's India career, and even his World Cup brilliance did not entirely eliminate it. His first three T20I innings after the tournament produced 5 against Ireland, 0 in the second match and 1 against England. India then turned to Sooryavanshi before recalling Samson for the final England T20I, where he struck an aggressive 27 off 14 balls. He was subsequently absent from the Zimbabwe series.

That sequence captures the problem. Samson's ceiling has rarely been in doubt. When everything clicks, he can destroy attacks at a rate very few Indian batters can match. The uncertainty has always been about how frequently those innings arrive and how many quiet games India should tolerate while waiting for the next one. Earlier, the management could afford to answer that question by backing Samson through the failures. Now there is another name sitting outside the XI.

Also Read: Sanju Samson 'doesn’t help his own cause': Sanjay Manjrekar says it as it is amid tough competition from Sooryavanshi

Sooryavanshi's own introduction to international cricket was hardly flawless. He began with scores of 14, 13 and 15 in England.