Suryakumar Yadav has been removed as the T20I captain of the Indian team almost three months after he led the Men In Blue to the T20 World Cup triumph.
Shortly after the win at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, Suryakumar had shown his cards, saying he was looking forward to the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028. Which surprised many, for he had been struggling with the bat for many months. Whoever convinced him that he could keep his job without scoring consistently truly misled him.
It would be wrong to assume that the selectors had decided then and there to do away with him. They wanted to give him one more chance, and that chance was the Indian Premier League. They wanted him to get back to big runs, but the 35-year-old flopped big time. Just 270 runs in 13 games at an average of 20.77. At that average, his strike rate of 147.54 becomes totally irrelevant, which is also not much.
Surya also sold himself short at Mumbai Indians. After Rohit Sharma, he was made the captain of the T20I team, but at Mumbai Indians, he played under Hardik Pandya over the last three seasons. The 2024 season was understandable, since he had not yet had the T20I captaincy, but afterwards, he should have moved to another franchise where he could skipper and be in full control. It was something a self-respecting person would do.
How absurd that is! That the captain of the Indian team is not captaining his franchise. It was not a career-oriented move to keep sticking with MI. Yes, he lives in Mumbai with his family, and sometimes that can be a big incentive, but a competitive player should not be thinking along those lines. He also became a father during the IPL season, and that would have distracted him for sure.
If Surya thought that just by being on good terms with Ajit Agarkar and Gautam Gambhir, he could continue in the role, he was wrong. Frankly, Surya didn’t come across as a great leader at any point in his tenure: he just had a great team. Besides, he tried to be too nice to everyone — not an attractive quality in a leader.
Have we seen the last of SKY in India colours?
Anyway, now that he has lost his captaincy, there is no way he is going to be the part of the squads to Ireland and England. If a skipper keeps performing but the team doesn’t win, they can be removed from captaincy and can still retain their place in the team. However, if the team keeps winning and the player loses the captaincy, that only means one thing. That they have lost their captaincy on account of nothing but poor form, and that they can’t be part of the team anymore.
Be that as it may, Suryakumar should be happy with what he has done for Indian cricket. His single biggest contribution is that he revolutionised India’s T20 batting. Some of the shots he played, including the scoop, were simply breathtaking. It wouldn’t be wrong to say the next generation of players picked up their stroke-making from him. Then who could forget that catch he took in the 2024 T20 World Cup final! Surya was a late bloomer, but today he has achieved much more than he would have hoped for, say five to six years ago.