The trademark lofted shots over the fine-leg region, cuts and drives bisecting backward point and short third-man or between point and cover have all been there. Yet, of late, Suryakumar Yadav hasn’t been the Suryakumar Yadav we know — the one who was T20 cricket’s gift to India since his international debut in March 2021.
Since the end of India’s triumphant T20 World Cup campaign last year, where they had to play on quite a few tricky pitches, T20I captain Surya has only two 50-plus scores of 58 and 75 against Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, respectively.
He tallies 256 runs from 12 innings, averaging 21.33 while Surya’s strike rate of 132.86 has also been quite low by his standards.
If that’s not all, Sky as he is popularly called aggregates just 26 from three innings in the ongoing home series against England. In all three of his dismissals so far, the England quicks have bowled the back-of-a-length delivery that had him undone.
To be fair to Surya, he did manage to put away a few of the deliveries unleashed by the likes of Jofra Archer and Mark Wood but his success has been shortlived. The England pacers’ ploy to keep bowling that length has worked and has had an impact on Surya, who hasn’t been able to convert his starts in the second and third T20Is.
If analysed carefully, one can see that if quicks bowl the hard length, it tends to create problems for Surya. Pakistan’s Haris Rauf had done so with an awkward bounce in the 2022 T20 World Cup game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, forcing Surya to edge behind the stumps. Before that, Naseem Shah had pitched one back of a length to dismantle Surya’s stumps in an Asia Cup clash the same year.
“Well, people have identified this area of his batting,” agreed former national selector Devang Gandhi. “Plus, English bowlers all bowl above 145kmph and are quicker through the air. That’s the reason they have kept it short of length, which is paying them dividends.
“But, Surya has his range of shots and he can play around them. In the past too, he has had problems, but he managed to sort it out... Don’t think there’s too much to worry about unless his lean patch gets prolonged,” Devang added.
Agreed, this isn’t the first time Surya is going through a rough phase. Australia had been a nightmare in early 2023 when he couldn’t even open his account in the three-match ODI series, getting dismissed off the first ball in each of the games.
However, ODIs are a different format and Surya knows well that he needs to perform to be a regular in India’s 50-over team. Rightly so, he has no complaints about not being considered for the upcoming Champions Trophy.
But in the T20 format, which is his forte, it does come across as a bit of a surprise to see him totalling only 52 from his last six innings. In the four-match series in South Africa late last year, which India won 3-1, he managed only 26 in three innings. While before these England T20Is, his numbers for Mumbai in domestic white-ball cricket were no better.
Such a dry phase in limited-overs cricket isn’t quite Surya-like.
That said, given his ability and class, the T20I captain needs just one solid innings to regain his rhythm and tempo, believes former Mumbai coach Sulakshan Kulkarni. “I’ve seen him recently also. He wasn’t having a good time even in the domestic matches.
“But it’s a matter of the feel after you have faced the first three to four balls in your innings. If Surya gets that feel in the first few deliveries he faces, I’m sure he’ll just be one knock away from being back to his best,” Kulkarni, who has tracked the India T20I skipper’s progress since Surya’s formative years in domestic cricket, emphasised.
More than technical, Surya’s problem currently seems to be more in the mind because of the pressure of the shortest format, Kulkarni feels. “You don’t have enough time to settle down in T20 cricket. It plays on your mind that you cannot afford too many dot balls.
“So then, more than technical or any other issue, it becomes a mind game. He then tries to take risks. Sometimes that may click, sometimes that may not.”