Suryakumar Yadav is a major worry now. There was a time when he was the toast of the town. He was one of India’s greatest T20 batsmen, and for a very long time, he held the number one position in the ICC T20I rankings. But now it appears he has waned in a big way from which there is no return to his former glory.
On Thursday night, Surya failed one more time as he fell for a first-ball duck off the bowling of Arshdeep Singh during the MI-PBKS encounter. Frankly, it’s not alarming that he is not getting runs. It’s the manner in which he has played in the last several months, with the exception of the New Zealand series at home.
In the T20 World Cup earlier this year, he got just one fifty — important though it was as the Indians were struggling against the USA — in the entire tournament. He made some important contributions in other matches, but by his high standards, it has to be said that he was off-colour in the main.
Ever since Surya took the captaincy reins from Rohit Sharma in 2024, he has struggled as a batsman. His dry spell with the bat ended effectively against New Zealand weeks before the T20 World Cup. With the help of three fifties, he scored 242 runs at an impressive strike rate of 196.74. It appeared he was back in his element.
With the benefit of hindsight, it was a false dawn, which gives rise to a pressing query whether or not Surya is way past his prime, and it’s time India moved on from him.
If India had not won the T20 World Cup, many would agree that it would have been the end of his T20I career. Luckily for him, India won. He has since expressed his wish to feature in the next T20 World Cup in 2028 as well as the Los Angeles Olympics in the same year.
There is enough evidence that he may not last that long. In the ongoing IPL, he has come up with scores of 16, 51, 6, 33, and 0 so far. His innings of 51 against Delhi Capitals came off 36 balls. Could you imagine Surya scoring a 36-ball 51 three years ago when he was at the height of his power? Not even in one’s wildest imagination would one imagine him to scoff so many deliveries for a mere 51.
Big giveaway Surya is not the same batsman!
The biggest sign that Surya is not the same batsman is that, particularly in recent times, he has not been able to execute his ramp shots as he did before. Previously, if he went for a ramp shot, there was almost a 100 per cent certainty that he was going to get the desired result. Not anymore.
The bowlers have started to bowl slow to him, and he has not been able to find a solution to that. Even his ability to clear the boundary rope through the covers isn’t the same. That inside-out shot is nowadays few and far between.
Continuing with Surya will be highly unfair to players like Shreyas Iyer and Rajat Patidar, who have been doing exceptionally well in the last few seasons of the IPL. It was another thing if India didn’t have the right replacement, but that’s not the case. Iyer and Patidar are today one of the fiercest batsmen in the IPL, and there is hardly a game when they don’t play an innings of great impact.
In July, India play five T20Is against England in England. And who knows, the mantle change might happen after that series? At the age of 35, he can’t get better for sure. After Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, he is likely to be the next to be phased out. As of today, it’s hard to imagine that Surya will be able to save his T20I career.
