Should Suryakumar Yadav have been picked for India’s tour to Australia?

Four-time IPL champions Mumbai Indians successfully lifted their 5th title this year in the UAE. The team had several star performers. Everyone performed exceedingly well and that resulted in the team winning the championship. One player who had done extremely well in the last couple of years, but was talked about more this year, is Suryakumar Yadav.

Since India’s squads for the upcoming Australia tour have been picked, Suryakumar has constantly been in the limelight as most believed he should have been picked in the T20I squad at least. His scintillating innings against RCB soon after the announcement just added more fuel to the fire. But was there really a possibility for Suryakumar to be added to an already saturated squad?

No spot for Surya

There are innumerable players who perform consistently in the Indian Premier League every year. The Indian talent that has been unearthed in recent years has been unbelievable. While Yadav has done well in the last three years, most of his runs in 2018 came at the top of the order. Hence at that point in time, he wasn’t in contention. The Mumbai lad has definitely done exceedingly well in the last two years at number three. But in the same period, players like Shreyas Iyer and Manish Pandey did well too and were even picked in the Indian team.

And since being picked, they haven’t done much wrong. They have batted at 4-5-6 position and succeeded at those positions. In 2020, in the 5 innings Manish Pandey played, he scored 120 runs at a strike rate of 158 without being dismissed even once. While he had a mediocre 2019, he had scored 299 runs at an average of 75 in 2018 as well. Iyer has scored 334 runs since 2019 in T20Is at an average of 33.4 and strike rate of 138. The numbers are proof – these players have done well in recent times and there was no basis for dropping them. There was only a limited number of players to be picked in the squad and the players selected were ahead in the pecking order. Hence, Yadav could not find a place.

The other side

On the contrary, we need to see Surya’s performances in isolation. He has scored almost 1000 runs at number three in the last two years. He’s done everything in his control. Cricketers usually get a national call-up after one good season. Yadav has had three consecutive ones. He has tons of experience, is an extremely flexible batsman who can bat anywhere from number 1-7. This season, he also showed he has developed into an extremely good finisher who takes his team home. Age cannot be an issue either as he is 30, while Manish Pandey is 31.

Suryakumar Yadav’s numbers before the 2020 IPL season

While it is true that the other batsmen haven’t done much wrong, Yadav offers something more than them. He has an exceptional middle-overs game. Since 2019, he has a strike rate of 132 from 6-15 overs while Iyer has 118.5 and Pandey has 113.7. This number is extremely crucial. The Indian team has the likes of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma – two players who can be really explosive but like to take their time early on. Kohli especially likes to anchor the innings in the middle overs. To have players like Iyer and Pandey, two guys who also anchor the innings, along with Kohli, means the middle overs are highly underused. Yadav showed us how proficiently he can exploit that phase of the game.

An alternative

There was another alternative present. Even if the selectors did not want to exclude Iyer and Pandey, the direct competitors to Sky, they could have opted to take him over someone like Mayank Agarwal or Varun Chakravarthy (now ruled out). There isn’t a lack of openers in the current squad as KL Rahul, Shikhar Dhawan are already present. On top of that, Sanju Samson, the alternate wicketkeeper, also opened in the last New Zealand series. The squad also had Yuzvendra Chahal, Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar as the spinners. A fourth spinner was just not needed for a tour to Australia. The selectors could have easily accommodated Yadav for one of these players.

The bottom-line is – Suryakumar Yadav deserved a spot in India’s squad for Australia. He has played consistently, has a great temperament and tons of experience. Even if the existing middle-order batsmen couldn’t be left out due to no fault of theirs, the extra opener or spinner could have been left out. It is high time Suryakumar Yadav got a national call-up and going by the way things are shaping up, it shouldn’t be too long before he does get an India cap.