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Suryakumar Yadav finds it tough to fill Rohit Sharma’s shoes as India’s T20I captain

Suryakumar Yadav finds it tough to fill Rohit Sharma’s shoes as India’s T20I captain

Suryakumar Yadav averages 43.40 when playing as a pure batter. But when he is the captain, SKY averages just 27.80.

Suryakumar Yadav, once the undisputed king of T20I batting, has suddenly hit a rough patch. While his fellow batting stars are firing on all cylinders, Suryakumar’s runs have dried up, leaving him struggling to make an impact. The Indian T20I captain’s woes were compounded when he got out for a duck in the first T20I against England. Now, he got his second duck as T20I skipper in Pune, with India facing the heat via Saqib Mahmood. Ever since taking the captaincy from Rohit Sharma, SKY has been a shadow of the batter he is.

Captaincy putting huge toll on Suryakumar Yadav

It’s like the weight of captaincy is crushing Suryakumar Yadav’s batting form. Just look at the numbers – from 2022 to 2023, he was unstoppable, smashing 1897 runs at an average of 47+ and a strike rate of 173.8. That’s an insane 73% of his career runs scored in just that one period! But since he took over as India’s permanent captain in October last year, his form has plummeted. He’s managed just 164 runs at a mediocre average of 16.40 and a strike rate of 149.09. It’s like the pressure of leadership is suffocating his batting brilliance.

Certainly a cause of concern, Surya

There’s no denying that Team India, under Suryakumar, is playing high-risk cricket. Batters try to slog down the ground from ball one and the role of anchors have been pushed out of the book entirely. In this manner, you might never see a consistent run-getter in this format. This high-risk approach hasn’t really helped Suryakumar either. A few years ago, SKY used to take 5-8 balls to get into his groove. He would then launch attacks to leave the opposition bowling helpless. In this reward-wicket approach, Suryakumar is bound to fail multiple times but he has been on a torrid run of late. Even at the ICC T20 Men’s World Cup, Suryakumar averaged less than 29 and operated at a SR of 135.37.

Most T20I runs for India since Suryakumar Yadav was made permanent captain

PlayerInnsRunsAveSR1005006s
Ssanju Samson1140140.10182.2730228
Tilak Varma838997.25171.3621126
Abhishek Sharma1127625.09182.7802019
Hardik Pandya1022737.83135.9200011
Suryakumar Yadav1016416.40149.0901210
Stats since 05 Oct, 2024

Most runs as India’s T20I captain

PlayerInnsRunsAveSR100500
Rohit Sharma62190534.01149.763136
Virat Kohli46157047.57140.550133
MS Dhoni62111237.06122.60000
Suryakumar Yadav2055627.80164.01142

Suryakumar Yadav since becoming India’s permanent T20I captain

Runs4s6sSRDismissalOpposition
5882223.07lbwv Sri Lanka
2641216.66caughtv Sri Lanka
81088.88caughtv Sri Lanka
2923207.14caughtv Bangladesh
81080caughtv Bangladesh
7585214.28caughtv Bangladesh
2121123.52caughtv South Africa
40044.44lbwv South Africa
10025caughtv South Africa
DNBv South Africa
0000caughtv England
1230171.42bowledv England
1611200.00caughtv England
0000caughtv England
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