If it’s T20 cricket, the beast in Suryakumar Yadav does make its presence felt.
After missing out in the first two T20Is of the ongoing West Indies tour, SKY as Surya is known, in what was India’s must-win game to stay alive in the series, put his hand up and produced an innings that typifies him in cricket’s shortest format.
On a tricky Providence Stadium pitch in Guyana, he toyed with the Windies bowling attack — which too was ridiculously mediocre — bringing his 360-degree shotmaking to the fore and enabling India to comfortably chase down a 160-run target and make the series scoreline 1-2.
No matter how he fares in other formats, Surya, in T20s, keeps shining. It thus is all the more surprising as to why he hasn’t yet been successful in the 50-over format, something he too accepted at the post-match news conference in Guyana on Tuesday evening.
“If I’m honest, I know my numbers in one-day cricket are quite poor. There is no shame in admitting that,” Surya said.
Is the entire problem mental then? What exactly does Surya need to do for better numbers in ODIs?
“I don’t think it’s a mental issue. It’s just that Surya needs to be a little more patient when at the crease and give himself a little more time. And so should we,” former Mumbai coach Amol Muzumdar told The Telegraph on Wednesday.
“Just as Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly were unique in their own way, so is Surya. He just needs to play according to the situation, which is the way to go in ODIs, and also should look to handle pressure differently,” Muzumdar added.
“It’s about some small adjustments which Surya needs to make,” feels former chief selector MSK Prasad. “If he can strike a purple patch in T20s, he can do so in one-dayers too.”
What bodes well for this gifted stroke-player is the clarity he has been given about his role in an ODI by regular captain Rohit Sharma and head coach Dravid. “Rohit and Rahulbhai have told me, ‘This is not a format that you play a lot, so you need to practise a bit on what can be done for the team. We want you to play 45 to 50 balls’.
“That’s the sign from the team management,” Surya said.
The onus now is on Surya to make use of the opportunities he gets in India’s coming 50-over assignments leading up to the World Cup in October-November. If both KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer are available for the showpiece event, and Surya’s numbers don’t get better, he may find it difficult to earn a Cup berth.
