CHENNAI: Soon as he moved legside to create some room and lofted Corbin Bosch, India T20I captain Suryakumar Yadav let out a sigh at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad on Friday. The sigh was not one of relief, but of desperation and helplessness, not knowing where things are going wrong.
On a pitch where every other India batter smashed at 160-plus strike rate, Yadav's painful innings had come to an end in seven balls as he found David Miller at mid-off. He had five runs to show in seven balls at a strike rate of 71.42 while India posted 231/5 in 20 overs during the fifth and final T20I against South Africa.
As he stood there in the middle, bereft, not wanting to leave the field, one could sense the frustration Yadav would have felt. It was his chance to make a statement with the bat, have some runs under the belt and help India win the series before going into the T20 World Cup selection meeting on Saturday. It would also have taken some pressure off the Indian captain before facing the media during the squad announcement on Saturday afternoon at the BCCI headquarters.
However, he fell flat on what is likely to be his penultimate bilateral T20I series as captain, continuing the poor run of form. From averaging 45.55 and striking at 171.55 till the end of 2023, Yadav's career average has dropped to 35.29 as of Friday. In 19 innings this year, Yadav has just 218 runs at an abysmal average of 13.62 and a SR of 123.16. Through this year, when asked about his lack of runs, Yadav has maintained that he is happy with his preparations and is just out of runs and not form. "I've been batting beautifully in the nets. When the runs have to come, they'll come. Not out of form, definitely out of runs," he had said after the win in Dharamsala last week.
By Friday, it is safe to say that the Indian captain is both out of form and out of runs.
So much so that if he was not the captain, and Shubman Gill were to pile on runs for fun, Yadav could be out of the squad. However, Yadav is the skipper and Gill's underwhelming return to T20I career means that the two of them keep their spot despite the lean patch.
Till this South Africa series, the fact that India were winning had masked Yadav's failures. Abhishek Sharma's prowess at the top and Tilak Varma-Hardik Pandya exploits in the middle had meant the skipper's poor form went under the radar. Even on Friday, barring Yadav, every single batter who walked out looked comfortable in the middle, toying with the bowlers, going after them from ball one. The Indian captain, meanwhile, struggle to hit a single boundary before eventually getting out.
Since he became captain, Yadav has taken to his personality and charm more than he used to especially in press conferences. The thing about it though is that it works when the team is winning and moving forward in the right direction. It is hard to not see the cracks when someone goes through a prolonged period of lull like Yadav has.
May be, it is time for Yadav to acknowledge that he is out of form. For he, too, by now know that he may have only two assignments as captain and it is his last chance to turn things around before the successor-in-waiting takes over after the World Cup. This isn't to say that Yadav will be removed as captain post the global event, but T20 WCs are two-year cycles and it is only a matter of time before Gill takes over as all-format captain. And India's T20 next assignment after the WC is in July 2025 when they travel to England.
So, the sooner Yadav realises that he has a problem and has to address it, the better it is for him and India.
