India opener Sanju Samson said his desire to live up to the team's needs helped him overcome the initial apprehension of competing with his own teammates for a spot in the eleven during the recent T20 World Cup, and churn out a series of match-winning performances.

Sanju scored 97 against the West Indies in the must-win Super Eights, and then came up with an identical 89 against England in the semifinal and New Zealand in the finale at Ahmedabad.

It completed a remarkable personal turnaround for the Kerala batter, who was moved out of India's starting eleven in the initial phase of the ICC showpiece after a low-key bilateral home T20I series against New Zealand.

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"I am the type of person who do much better for others than doing things better for myself. In that series (against NZ), I was competing with my own people (for a place in the team) and I was not very comfortable with it," Sanju said during India Today Conclave.

Sanju admitted that the failure to find a place in the eleven left him a broken man.

"I was too desperate knowing that my dream is so near. But was the team still trying some combinations? So, is Sanju there or not there? So, that kind of feeling played in my mind at that time.

"I was absolutely broken because my dream was to win the World Cup, and I am not even in the XI. So, actually, I was gone for 5-6 days and I started rebuilding myself. Started preparing myself knowing you never know what the game want to give back to you," he said.

The much-awaited chance came Sanju's way during India' Super Eight match against Zimbabwe at Chennai.

The 31-year-old did not make too many runs, but received an assurance from the the team management that he will be in the eleven in the next four matches.

It was also partly because the think tank wanted to break the left-hander's sequence at the top to nullify the effect of rival off-spinners.

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"I knew the team management had trust in me. When the World Cup came in I kind of figured out now that the team wants you, so that is the mindset change which happened in my head. So, right from the Zimbabwe game, we had to win four out of four matches and the team needs you. So, that's when it became very positive for me, and I was very fired up," he said.