Indian Sanju Samson (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki)
Sanju Samson continued his impressive run in the 2026 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup with another stunning knock in the final, giving India a brilliant start with 89 runs off just 45 balls. The wicket-keeper once again set the tone at the top, attacking from the start and keeping the pressure strong on the opposition bowlers.Samson’s latest effort also helped India set a unique record in the history of the T20 World Cup. For the first time ever, all three top players in a team’s innings crossed the 50-run mark in the same match. It highlighted the dominance of the Indian batting line-up on the biggest stage of the tournament.The 31-year-old also rewrote the record books with the six he achieved in this edition. Samson now holds the record for the most sixes in a single T20 World Cup campaign with 24, surpassing Finn Allen who hit 20 sixes in a previous edition.
His 89 in the final also went down as the highest individual score in a T20 World Cup final. The Indian star surpassed the previous best of 85 not out by Marlon Samuels in 2016 and 85 not out by Kane Williamson in 2021.Samson’s consistency has been one of the standout stories of the tournament. He also joined the elite list of players who have scored half-centuries in both the semi-finals and finals of the T20 World Cup. Only Shahid Afridi in 2009 and Virat Kohli in 2014 had previously achieved the feat before Samson added his name to the list in 2026.
The Indian batsman also equaled another notable record of consecutive fifty hits in the tournament. Samson now has three consecutive scores of 50 or more in the T20 World Cup, which puts him alongside some of the most consistent performers in the format.The list includes Mahela Jayawardene, who achieved it in 2010, Virat Kohli, who did so between 2016 and 2021, Babar Azam in 2021, Kal Rahul in 2021, and two other players in the current edition, Kusal Mendis and Sahibzada Farhan.Sanju Samson also etched his name in the record books when he became the highest-scoring Indian in a single edition of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup. He surpassed Virat Kohli’s long-standing record of 319 runs, set during the 2014 tournament.What makes Samson’s achievement even more remarkable is that he was not part of India’s playing XI at the start of the competition and appeared in just five matches during the season.