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After six-game lean patch, skipper needs to find form as T20I series rolls into his backyard
Suryakumar Yadav during the third T20I against England in Rajkot on Tuesday. Pic/PTI
It’s been six innings since India’s T20 captain Suryakumar Yadav fired on all cylinders. Suryakumar has endured a lean patch after his 75 against Bangladesh last October in Hyderabad, where India recorded the third-highest T20I total (297-6). In his last six T20I innings, Suryakumar has scored only 52 runs at 8.67. His struggles with the bat are reflected in his strike rate over these half-a-dozen innings — 110.64 as against his career strike rate of 167.70. He will be tested here today during the fourth and penultimate T20I against England with India leading 2-1.
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Poor average
The 360-degree game that Suryakumar has come to be associated with now with his batting exploits is missing. What’s more concerning is that he has scored only one fifty in nine white-ball matches for Mumbai in December-January, averaging 26.40 in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and 9.50 during the Vijay Hazare Trophy.
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Ryan ten Doeschate
The 34-year-old Mumbaikar has been shuffling between Nos. 3 and 4 of late in T20Is depending on the type of openers dismissed, to keep a left-right combination going to prevent the bowlers from settling into a rhythm. While flexibility in the batting order has been the Indian team’s mantra for a while under different coaches and not necessarily under Gautam Gambhir, it seems the blaster has not adjusted to this uncertainty in the batting order.
But, like the Indian team’s assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate said on Thursday, the left-right combination “is a big part of [Gambhir’s] strategy in these games.” Ten Doeschate was not particularly concerned about Suryakumar’s form. “Surya has set such high standards by himself. I wouldn’t say that consistency or predictability is a particularly high mark in T20 cricket. The job we’re asking these guys to do is to go out and score really quickly,” he said.
“The way the international T20 game has gone, we allow for a bit of inconsistency and a bit of a lean patch like he’s going through at the moment. But I always look at how guys are training, how they are playing in the nets. I thought he played two lovely shots — one on the leg side and one on the off side, the other night — which certainly made me think, ‘ah, it’s back.’
‘Not concerned’
“So, I don’t think he’s far away. Generally, Gauti [Gambhir] is very keen to back these guys and give them a long road, a long chance to prove themselves. Surya has been one of the best batters in the world, let alone this Indian team. So [we are] certainly not concerned about him and we feel like he’s a couple of shots away from being back on track and back in form,” Ten Doeschate added.
Suryakumar has been at his best at No. 4. He has batted in 44 out of his 77 T20I innings at that position, scoring his highest T20I score (117) there and has smashed three of his four T20I hundreds at No. 4. He also enjoys his highest strike rate (169.69) at two-down and averages best (44.64), better than his career average, at No. 4. Suryakumar can hit the right straps in the fourth T20I on Friday and rediscover his form at the venue where, in his only previous T20I visit, he scored 51 at No. 4 against Sri Lanka two years ago.
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