CHENNAI: Suryakumar Yadav did not get to bat on his debut for India. On March 18, 2021, during the fourth T20I against England in Ahmedabad, in his first outing with the bat for India, Yadav was up against Jofra Archer — one of the fastest bowlers in the world. And not just that, Archer is one of the top T20 bowlers going around as well. But none of it was going to fluster him.
Yadav was ready with his open stance — back foot on middle-and-leg, front foot outside leg — shuffled the backfoot across, planted the front-foot forward to go down a bit momentarily before leaning back towards his right, half-pulling/scooping Archer with the front foot up in the air over fine-leg for a six. The first ball he faced in international cricket was a six.
Now, reading what he did might seem very complicated. But, that’s not how Yadav makes it look. He plays the shot like he takes a breezy morning walk at Marine drive back home in Mumbai. He makes it look ridiculously easy and he plays it as consistently as anyone could.
16 months on, nothing has changed. This time, it was not the first ball he faced. And he was not facing the fastest bowler in the team. In fact, it was his last scoring shot in a swashbuckling 44-ball 76 against West Indies at Warner Park, St Kitts on Tuesday. He was up against Dominic Drakes. The stance was still the same. But the angle was different. The moment the ball left the left-arm pacer’s hand from over the wicket, Yadav moved his backfoot to his further left before dragging it closer to his front foot which was at his further right, and went down on his knees, scooping the length delivery over fine-leg. Although the ball missed the rope by inches, it was as ridiculous as his first shot in international cricket. And once again, he made it look like he was taking a stroll at Marine drive.
There were quite a few ludicrous shots through the course of the innings as well. A standing upright, all-hands through the line, high-elbow loft over extra cover boundary off a hard length delivery from Alzarri Joseph was right up his alley. But it’s not just about his shot-hitting range and the aesthetic sense of it all. Numbers tell the most important story.
Since Yadav’s debut in March 2021, only Rohit Sharma has scored more runs in T20Is (33 more while playing 3 more innings than him). Yadav has 648 runs in 20 innings and what’s more, he has scored them at a strike rate of 175.60 — the highest for any Indian with over 25 runs in this period.
The X factor though is the fact that he has done it while being shuffled between any slot from opening to No 5. While there is very little to dispute Yadav’s place in India’s first, full-strength, XI — which includes all their superstars — what he is offering to this management is that he could replace any of the top five batters at any given situation in the shortest format. And with KL Rahul’s injury struggles and Virat Kohli’s search for form, that is an inexplicable cushion to have for India going into the T20 World Cup.
Brief scores: West Indies 164/5 in 20 ovs (Kyle Mayers 73; Bhuvaneshwar 2/35) lost to India 165/3 in 19 ovs (Suryakumar 76; Hosein 1/28).