Suryakumar Yadav and his 360-degree career!

image-lfl7d24uSuryakumar Yadav playing a shot in the nets (AP photo)

Suryakumar Yadav has been the talk of the town and the heartbeat of India for last couple of years now. He has made the whole world take notice of his extraordinary talent and that has paved way to him being named as India's Mr. 360! 

However, as uncle Ben said to Peter Parker in Spiderman - "With great power, comes great responsibility", in cricketer's life too, one needs to learn how to handle expectations as one moves ahead in their respective career. 


Suryakumar Yadav has been a late-bloomer and made his international debut at the age of 30 amid some intense calls for his inclusion in the Indian side after his exploits in the IPL. The journey was pretty long for SKY, from being a hot-tempered talented batter who even led Mumbai in Ranji trophy to getting dropped from the Mumbai side for one season, it seemed that SKY has seen it all, before even making his international debut. 

However, international cricket is a different ball-game altogether. It can take you to cloud nine one day and on another day you might end up evading the whole world for some mental peace.  This is exactly what seem to be happening with Surya as he completes his two years in international cricket.

He started off with a bang scoring a counter-attacking fifty in his first innings in a T20I and then went on from strength to strength in the format stroking three centuries on the way. He is the number 1 T20I batter currently in ICC rankings and there has been no batter who has even come close to making the impact Surya has made in T20Is in recent times.

However, when you perform well at the international level, the expectations grow exponentially regardless of the format and SKY after doing so well in the T20 format, has failed to live up to his billing in the ODI format. Though he started the ODI format brightly too and made two fifties in his first six ODIs along with some handy cameos. 

However, the image he created by making a habit of tonking the ball from the onset in T20 cricket led to his undoing in the 50-over game.  His last ODI fifty came in February 2022 and by the time he played his next full ODI series in July that year, he was already a superstar at the international level with his exploits in T20Is. Since then, whenever he got an opportunity to play in ODI cricket, he failed to notch up significant scores, even though his exploits in T20 cricket continued.

The world cricket's focus though has shifted to ODI cricket in 2023 with the World Cup coming up and everyone expected Surya to make a strong claim for a permanent spot in the Indian ODI side. However, he kept struggling to find his template in the format and the calls of him being only a T20 basher started making rounds. The recently concluded Australian series was his golden opportunity to make a mark but SKY ended up hitting rock bottom with a historic debacle of three successive golden ducks.  


Thus the man who was just months ago termed as India's biggest match-winner and a world beater, suddenly finds himself at the other extreme with people calling for his omission from the ODI side all over social media and Indian cricketing circles. 

So, is this the end of road for Surya in the ODI format? Is he only a T20 basher? The man has the experience of playing domestic cricket for Mumbai for over a decade and has done well across formats. So, you surely cannot rule him out with after just few failures but one thing is for sure, this little blip in his hugely successful international career, could end up making him a more matured and better cricketer.