India didn’t drop Shubman Gill for Sanju Samson just to play faster. They did it to change what an Indian powerplay can be: less insurance, more immediate damage.
The New Zealand series now has forced the blunt question – if Samson barely scored, did India gain anything at all?
The answer is yes, but not in the obvious way. India gained a different risk profile and a higher-ceiling template. They also exposed the coast: a shakier opening floor, and that matters most when pitches slow down or knockouts tighten nerves.
The hard numbers: what changed, what didn’t
Let us start with some evidence. Against New Zealand, Samson’s returns as opener were 10 (7), 6(5), 0(1), 24(15) and 6(6): 46 runs in five innings averaging 9.20 at a strike rate of 135.329. In four matches he was gone inside the first three overs. If the brief was to personally win the powerplay, he didn’t.
And yet India’s powerplays stayed strong: an average of 69 runs in the first six overs across the series. That is the first key takeaway – India’s current batting depth can absorb an opener’s failure better than older versions of this team could. The attack doesn’t end when one wicket falls early.
What the Gill vs Samson dilemma actually is
So why move away from Shubman Gill in the first place? Because Gill and Samson represent two different identities at the top. Gill as T20I opener gives you repeatable stabilising starts; Samson offers a powerplay that can end a match in six overs.
That ceiling is why this was never only form vs form. Modern T20 is increasingly a matchup sport: teams win by focusing on bad bowling choices, not by gently building to 170. A high-impact opener pressures captains into spending their best bowler early or saving them for later and risking the game slipping away.
But threat value doesn’t count unless it turns out to be a measurable advantage. In the recently finished New Zealand series, India’s team scoring stayed healthy, but wasn’t Samson-driven. The swap didn’t clearly improve starts, India still won because others carried the innings. That can make the change look cosmetic – yet it also reveals why selectors attempted it: the lineup is deep enough to carry a high-variance opener.
The bigger worry is trend, not one series. Since January 2025, Samson has crossed the powerplay only once in nine T20I innings as an opener, averaging only 11.55 in that run. That isn’t just bad luck, it is a pattern opponents can build around with hard lengths, early movement, and straight fields that cut off his easiest scoring zones.
So, did India gain anything? They gained a weapon – a higher-ceiling opening template that can win you a knockout quickly when it lands. But a weapon that rarely fires becomes a dead weight against top-tier attacks, where an early wicket changes chases and compresses decision-making.
If India want this change to be a net positive, they need two things. First, role clarity: Sanju Samson must be picked as a pure powerplay aggressor, not as a hybrid who also has to protect against collapse. Second, a visible Plan B: some who can be the stability switch for swing, two-paced surfaces, or nights when one wicket in the first over changes the match’s geometry.
In the New Zealand series, India didn’t gain runs from the Samson-for-Gill swap. They gained an option. The elite move now is using that option situationally, not turning it into permanent ideology.