Suryakumar Yadav 2.0: The shape-shifting puzzle
CHENNAI: In hindsight, it's amusing to note that Suryakumar Yadav made his T20I debut in March 2021. At a time when India relied on wicket preservation as opposed to viewing the format as a different sport — there are arguments to suggest they still don't view T20 as a different sport — Yadav was one of the few Indian batters to identify what T20s were. In the three years of playing the IPL before he was belatedly handed an India call-up, he compiled 1416 runs at 136 while averaging 34.5 (hitting one boundary every five deliveries).
When the selectors finally decided to embrace Yadav's coruscating ability before the T20 World Cup in 2021, there was a collective sigh. Relief more than anything. His first international essay with the bat only confirmed what many had seen. Here was a batter blessed with elastic wrists, timing from the Gods, an understanding of the field and an innate ability to keep hitting the ball in places where captains don't normally place fielders.
After his match-winning 50 against England in March 2021, then skipper Virat Kohli said the dressing room was 'stunned' by the start he gave (a first ball six). "It's not easy to walk in at three and start like that, we were stunned by that start, he stamped his authority..." People who regularly watched Mumbai Indians, though, weren't all that stunned. Time and again, he had bullied some of the leading bowlers in the world.
If the period from 2018 to 2021 saw Yadav's rise, the last two years has been Yadav 2.0 where he has grown from Mumbai's not so well kept secret to the world's best batter in this format.
His third century, coming against Sri Lanka on Saturday night, perfectly explained why Yadav lives on a different planet compared to the other leading batters in this format. He doesn't try to muscle balls, he plays the field, can hurt bowlers in multiple ways, possesses different shots to the same deliveries and never loses shape.
It's perhaps funny to say he never loses shape when he sometimes finishes on the adjacent surface but 'never loses shape' in this context means he's always in control of the situation. Especially when he eyes the vacant region behind square on either side, he uses the bat as a tool that can divert the ball. There is always an element of premeditation but in Yadav's case, it actually helps him because a) he never loses shape and b) uses the bat to kiss the ball and not bludgeon it.
"It is really important to put pressure on yourself when you are preparing for the game," he said after his third T20I ton. "More pressure you put, the better you can play. There is a lot of hard work involved. Some quality practice sessions are also involved. The boundaries behind were 59-60m, so I tried to clear them. There are a few shots that are pre-determined but you have to be ready for other strokes as well. Most of the time, I try to find the gap, and use the field to my advantage, coach (Rahul) Dravid lets me enjoy, and tells me to express myself."
New Zealand's Glenn Phillips put forth a theory on what made Yadav, Yadav, after the third T20I during the recent series there. “The thing that strikes me the most is actually how he manages to predict so well where the ball is going,” he had said. “It’s not necessarily about the premeditation, per se. He has a rough idea of where the bowler is going to bowl. But he still has the ability to guess which ball it is going to be and then have bailout options. If it’s not there and, unlike other people, his bailout options still seem to go for four or six.”
Indeed. That's what has made him so successful and it's why it's proved so hard for the bowlers to figure him out. Imagine the grammar of his batting like a constant shape-shifting puzzle. You solve it once, it automatically becomes something else two nights later so the bowler has to do something entirely different.