Who would have thought that there would come a stage when Suryakumar Yadav would struggle to buy a run in T20 cricket? One of the best batters the format has ever seen is going through a rut, and runs are hard to come by for the 35-year-old in the Indian Premier League (IPL). The Mumbai Indians managed to win under his captaincy on Monday night against the Lucknow Super Giants. Still, Surya yet again disappointed with the bat, returning with just 12 runs in seven balls. In the 10 matches he has played so far, the right-hander has hit just one half-century, and his form has been one of the reasons behind the franchise languishing in the bottom half of the points table.
Former India batter Sanjay Manjrekar attributed Suryakumar’s poor form to the batter being on the wrong side of the 30s, saying the player’s fitness is not where it should be and the physical attributes are leading to the poor form with the bat.
“I don’t think he is as fit as he was 5 or 6 years back. I mean, he’s older, but fitness-wise, I don’t think he is. If you get on the wrong side of 30, then if you don’t take care of your fitness too much, this game is so ruthless, it will start exposing you, because those things that you take for granted, seeing the ball, and hitting all these shots, they’ll start, sort of, just find it more difficult to pull those shots off,” Manjrekar said on Sportstar’s Insight Edge Podcast.
“I’m certain about one thing: his fitness is not what it should be. If I were this personal coach, I would only get him to get your lighter on his feet. stronger, and spend time there, rather than practising all the time because that’s his game as well.
Suryakumar has registered just 195 runs in 10 matches for the Mumbai Indians in the IPL 2026 season at an average of 19.50, and he’s not even in the top 30 run-scorers in the 19th edition of the tournament. Manjrekar advised India’s T20 World Cup-winning captain to take a leaf out of Virat Kohli’s playbook and work on his fitness if he wants to have any chance of finding his groove back.
“Take a leaf out of Virat Kohli’s book. Virat is not in his early 30s; he is, and he has had tough times in T20 cricket. But look at him this season. And what is the one difference in the fitness of Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, and Virat Kohli? I’m telling you, honestly, all the other things are there with him. Surya has that body of experience. Over the years, he knows how to get runs. He’s seen success, so the mental side of things is there. Just get your body to support your intent. And I thought Rohit Sharma, as well, fell off and waned off because he didn’t take care of his fitness as much as he should. He just made things a little more difficult,” said Manjrekar.
“I see that with Surya as well. So, you’re going to take your fitness levels to the next. I mean, go into extreme fitness, as Virat does. I’ve said this before as well. When Virat gets any success, the 1st thing he attributes it to is his physical fitness. For Surya, this is the only thing: okay, he can make his journey much simpler going forward if he just focuses on his physical factors. The mental side of things will take care of itself,” he added.
Will Surya lead India?
Suryakumar has been having a couple of below-par years with the bat. Last year, he didn’t score a single fifty in T20Is for India, and the only saving grace came in the IPL, where he hit 717 runs for the Mumbai Indians. Earlier this year, he showed signs of old times, when he plundered runs for fun in the five-match T20I series against New Zealand.
However, after the opening match of the T20 World Cup 2026 against the USA, Surya has been on a downward spiral, and questions are now being raised about his place in the T20I playing XI and whether he is fit to lead the Men in Blue in the coming few months.
“That’s a tricky question to answer. Now, what you’re saying is IPL performances. We tend to think that he also had a bad run in the IPL last season or whatever, but it’s more at the international level. I think the runs were evading, and he had a good IPL. And that loss of form at the international level has caught up in the IPL, even in the T20 World Cup, during that 1st inning against the USA. He didn’t do anything much. It’s clear to see that he’s not the same player. Now, it is about selectors putting on their cricketers’ hats, and this is where you need selectors, who are cricketers with a keen sense of potential and possibilities,” said Manjrekar.
“Is Surya capable of reproducing that magic again? And that question is something that they’ve got to ask themselves. We’ve seen for a while that he’s not been able to, and he’s not young. But how can you sort of not have your T20 World Cup-winning captain for the next T20 international that India plays? So I don’t think anybody’s going to take that tough decision. So the next series will decide whether he has a long-term future in T20 cricket. But he’s clearly somebody who’s just gone off the boil completely,” he added.