This year has been different for multiple reasons. Whatever didn't happen in the past happened this year, be it Royal Challengers Bengaluru finally winning the IPL trophy or South Africa breaking the trophy jinx by lifting the World Test Championship mace. One more thing that didn’t happen earlier but has happened this year is Suryakumar Yadav not scoring a fifty. In the 16 innings he has played so far, the Indian captain hasn't managed to get past 50. His highest score this year is an unbeaten 47 against Pakistan in the Asia Cup at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium. Forget reaching the milestone — Surya has struggled even to get into double digits. Of the 16 innings he has played, he has managed to cross that mark only seven times. Surya’s latest double-digit effort was a modest 12 off 11 balls against South Africa in the first T20I at Cuttack’s Barabati Stadium.
All in all, this year has been a deeply disappointing one for Surya with the bat. His average with the bat is below 16 this year, the worst since his debut in 2021. Not just the dip in average, this year his strike-rate has been below 130, which is very low in comparison with his overall career strike-rate of 160 plus.
Even last year, he only averaged 26.81 with the bat, again not up to the standards that he's set for himself. Ever since he has put on the captaincy hat, Surya the batter is lost somewhere. When he was not leading the team, he used to toy with opposition bowling, scoring freely and being impactful. All that seems to have been lost now, especially after last year’s T20 World Cup. While he has led the team well, winning all the bilateral series and also the Asia Cup, he hasn’t been able to lead with the bat, which he used to do.
Before the last T20 World Cup, Surya was India’s batting lynchpin. Now he looks like a pale shadow of himself. What has not worked for him is the fact that he's not been getting a lot of balls to face. As admitted by him, only the openers’ position is fixed in his team; the rest of the batting lineup is flexible. Sometimes Tilak Varma bats at 3, sometimes it's Sanju Samson, sometimes Shivam Dube, and while this flexibility has worked for the team, it has minimised Surya’s impact with the bat.
Surya has said in the past that with the team doing well, he’s happy and the form is not a big concern. True, in T20 cricket, one good innings can lift you up and help you find your mojo. But unfortunately for Surya that one innings hasn't come so far for him this year.
The team management, selectors and Surya himself may not be overly concerned, as they'll downplay the question regarding his form, but the truth is it's an alarming sign given that the World Cup is just two months away.
Surya has nine more games to rediscover his form before the World Cup defence begins at home. The team management must make him bat at number 3 in as many games as possible in the lead-up to the World Cup. The more balls he faces, the better it will be for him and for the team.
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