With his knock of five runs off four balls against South Africa in the second T20I at Maharaja Yadavindra Singh PCA New International Stadium at Mullanpur on Thursday, Indian captain Suryakumar Yadav’s poor run of form in T20Is continued this year. In the 19 T20Is this year, Yadav has only scored 201 runs with an average of 14.35 in 17 innings and the 35-year-old also has the lowest average among Indian batters having total runs of more than 50 runs in T20Is this year. Yadav, who came to bat at number four against South Africa at Mullanpur, scored his ninth single digit score in T20Is this year and the Mumbai batsman has only scored one score in excess of 40 in T20Is this year with his knock of 47 runs against Pakistan in Asia Cup being the highest in T20Is this year and Indian assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate admitted that Yadav is having a ‘fairly long string of form’ and ‘has not got the scores we like’ but the team is not worried about it.
When asked about him seeing scope of improvement in Yadav’s form, the assistant coach talked about the team management’s faith in Yadav’s abilities apart from his captaincy. “And look Surya again, is such a quality player and we have high expectations of the players. And you know if you are going to be India’s number three, there is pressure on you to score runs and there’s been a fairly long string of form, he hasn’t got the scores we like. But in our isolation, we are certainly not worried about it. Batting at three again the job we want from him is to go out there and attack. And again, he is someone I thought of sort of had a light bulb moment in Australia. I thought he has been batting really well leading into this series as well. And like I say, two games, we are not worried about that and we are confident that he will come good. His leadership has been fantastic. He has got the group moving in the right direction in terms of plans and the runs will come,” Doeschate told reporters in the press conference post India’s 51-run loss against South Africa.
Yadav had an average of 46.56 in T20Is in 2022 when he had amassed 1164 runs in 31 T20Is followed by an average of 48.86 amassing 733 runs in 18 T20I matches in 2023. Last year, Yadav had scored 429 runs at an average of 26.81 in 17 T20Is followed by the dip in form this year. With Shubman Gill too seeing a second successive failure in the series and having scored a total of 263 runs in 14 matches this year in T20Is, Doeschate was asked about how the Indian team, which is flexible with the batting order, goes with the captain and vice-captain having lack of runs and having second thoughts about the duo. “No, there’s not. I think you know Shubi (Shubman), I saw some good signs of a change in mentality on the back end of the Australian tour. And then I would not even consider these two dismissals in this series, I thought in the first game, you know we asked the guys to attack the power play and there wasn’t a great wicket at Cuttack. So I will let him off that one. And he got a good ball today. Which can happen when you are short on form. But you also know the class. You look at his IPL record where he stacks up 700 runs, 600 runs, 800 runs, 600 runs. We believe in his class and we believe he will come good and exactly the same with Surya. Obviously you mentioned leadership roles. We are quite far down the road now our planning and how we have set the team up. And personally I think you back quality players and quality leaders like that and they will come good. I can understand from the outside that it looks like a concern but I have got absolute faith in both of them coming good at the right time for us,” Doeschate said.
On the need for Gill to change his game to the team template of scoring quick runs in T20I format, Doeschate shared how the team wants him to play freely without the burden of captaincy in T20I format. “Starting with Shubman again, I think taking on the captaincy, the way he did in England and how well he led and how much pride he took in that performance, I think an element of that carried over into what he wanted to do in the T20 side. So anything he was too caring and maybe a little bit tight and like I said towards the back end of Australia (Tour), the talks were around him freeing up a little bit more. You know trying to relinquish that responsibility certainly in that capacity where you feel like it’s all about you and you really need to justify your place in the team. We don’t want him to do that. We want him to play as freely as he does during IPL seasons,” Doeschate said.