Samson will be hoping to lead Kerala to Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy glory after exiting the tournament from the first round in the previous edition
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Team India opener Sanju Samson celebrates after scoring a fifty in 4th T20 in Hyderabad(Photo: PTI)
After a busy international schedule for the Indian team, wicket-keeper batter Sanju Samson is set to return to the domestic circuit as Kerala’s captain in the upcoming Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy edition, India’s premier T20 league from 14th November onwards.
Sanju Samson recently returned from New Zealand where the Indian team are touring for an all-format seriesHe featured in all of the matches of the five-match T20I series which India won by a margin of 3-2, but his own form raised plenty of questions.
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The top-order batter had only one 50+ score in the first T20I and failed to cross even the 20-run mark in all of the remaining matchesNow he has returned to India and the Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy is going to be the tournament that will help him get back to his mojo.
Samson will be leading a team of 18 players for Kerala who will begin their campaign against Madhya Pradesh on November 14This will be his first time returning to domestic action since January with his last appearance coming in a Vijay Hazare trophy (one-day) match.
Later in the year, he proved to be a surprise package for the Indian team during the ICC T20 World Cup 2026 where he ended up as the player of the tournamentHe then won the gold medal at the 20th Asian Games in Aichi and Nagoya before a facing the West Indies and New Zealand over the last two months.
It has been a winning year for him and he will look to land another silverware with KeralaHe had captained the South Indian outfit in the previous SMAT edition, too, but failed to reach the last stages of the tournament.
Kerala had endured a fourth-place finish in Elite Group A and got knocked out after the first stage itselfIndividually, Samson had a productive season, scoring 233 runs in six outings at a strike rate of over 130.
Kerala will face Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tripura, Puducherry, Assam and Himachal Pradesh.
Kerala’s squad for SMAT
Sanju Samson (C) (WK), Rohan Kunnummal, Mohammed Azharuddeen (WK), Ahammed Imran, Govind Dev Pai, Krishna Devan, Vishnu Vinod (WK), Salman Nizar, Akhil Scaria, Nikhil M, Vignesh Puthur, Biju Narayanan N, Karthik Nair, Vaisakh Chandran, KM Asif, Nidheesh, Sharafuddeen and Jalaj Saxena.
