Suryakumar Yadav has got his defenses high as questions go louder over his performance slump in 2025. The men’s T20I captain, who is averaging 14.2 in the format this year, said he is not ‘out of form’ because he has been batting ‘beautifully’ in the nets.
For a minimum threshold of ten innings, only Axar Patel averaged fewer runs per game in T20Is in a year than Suryakumar. No captain of a full-member country has scored over 200 runs and averaged worse than the Mumbaikar in a year.
While there have been mitigating factors like constantly changing batting position due to team needs and experimentation, Suryakumar has often looked like the shadow of a batter who once was the best in the world.
“The thing is, I’ve been batting beautifully in the
nets,” he said in the post-match presentation ceremony after India’s win over South Africa in the third T20I in Dharamshala, where he scored 12 (11). “I’m trying everything that’s in my control. And when the game comes, when the runs have to come, they’ll definitely come. But yes, I’m looking for runs, not out of form, but definitely out of runs.”
Thankfully for the skipper, the team has been winning most of its matches under him. Although they haven’t looked like a cohesive team-to-beat yet, the results have come whenever there’s pressure — just like a seven-wicket one here in Himachal after a big defeat in the last match in Mullanpur.
“I think this sport teaches you a lot of things,” Suryakumar said. “How you come back into the series is more important. And we did the same thing, we wanted to go back to basics, do the same things we were doing in Cuttack, and the results were on our side. See, there was a lot of learning from the game we played in Chandigarh. The bowlers sat together, we had a good team meeting as well. We came for practice sessions and tried to do the same things we did in Cuttack. We went back to basics. We didn’t try to do a lot of different things, but I think basics were very important at that time,” he added.
