MUMBAI: Harry Brooke stood with his hands on his knees and tried to laugh it off. Jofra Archer turned away in frustration and walked towards his target while Sanju Samson breathed a sigh of relief as he marked his defender.
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It was a crucial moment of the match, with the second ball of the third over being bowled by Archer, the right-arm pacer Samson missed a chance to hit it straight to Brooke at mid-off. However, the England captain ended up overturning a car. Samson was then on 15 off 7 and followed up with 74 off 35 in a stunning attack on the England bowlers.
England had a chance to tighten their control of the game by reducing India to 24/2. Instead, they ruined everything when the Kerala cricketers went on a rampage to score an entertaining 42-ball 89 off eight fours and seven sixes to help India win at 253/7. Samson’s score was the joint-third-highest score in a T20 World Cup match, tied with Virat Kohli’s unbeaten 89 against West Indies at the same venue in 2016.
Also read: Harry Brooke says giving up on Sanju Samson was a big mistake I made
With every boundary Samson passed, Brooke became more and more worried. As Samson slices, pulls and drives away everything thrown at him, Brook will feel like Hershel Gibbs, who dropped Steve Waugh during the 1999 World Cup.
Everyone is looking forward to the Archer-Samson showdown, especially in the T20I series early last year, which the Englishman dominated in India’s opener. Samson struggled against Archer’s pace and short delivery, scoring just 25 runs from the 23 balls he faced and was dismissed three times.
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To add insult to injury, in the last T20I of the series, Samson’s right index finger was blown off by an Archers rocket, which kept him out for a month.
Samson defended Archer on Thursday but unlike the 2025 T20I series where his confidence dropped with each low-scoring over, he made a match-winning 97 against West Indies to reach the semi-finals. He smacked Archer’s wicket to mid-off and then smacked a misdirected short ball over deep fine leg for a six.
In the third over, the 31-year-old’s heart was in his throat as he watched his ball sail straight towards Brooke, but he quickly regrouped his thoughts when he saw the ball being spooned, and two balls later, had his nemesis on the horns for six.
Archer returned in the 13th over but Samson hit two of the three balls he faced for boundaries. Samson faced Archer in total for 14 balls and took 38 runs from him.