India shouldn’t play Suryakumar Yadav just to get him game time: Former batting coach Sanjay Bangar | Cricket News
Despite averaging just 24 off his 24 ODI innings for India and poor returns from the recent outings in the format, Suryakumar Yadav found a place in the 15-member squad for the 2023 ODI World Cup.
Having made his reputation as the quintessential feature in India’s T20 side, Surya hasn’t been able to replicate his success in the shortest format when it comes to 50-overs cricket. Having started at number four and even batted at three, where he has been a mainstay for India in T20Is of late, Surya was recently used as a finisher lower down the format during India’s tour of West Indies. An experiment that didn’t lead to any different returns.
On the other hand in the middle order have been, Ishan Kishan and Hardik Pandya, both of whom crucial scores in the recent India-Pakan game and also serve as multi-purpose players in being a keeper batter and an all-rounder. As do Ravindra Jadeja and even KL Rahul, who is yet to play a game for India following his injury comeback, but has been touted as the men in blue’s first choice wicketkeeper going into the all important season.
All of it kept into account and with a month’s time left in the 2023 World Cup, former India batting coach Sanjay Bangar believes that Surya shouldn’t just be featured in the playing XI for the sake of game time.Most Read
1
As ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3 goes into sleep mode, project director Veeramuthuvel says scientific objectives were completely met
2
Pakan vs Bangladesh Live Score, Asia Cup 2023: Imam-ul-Haq scores a timely half-century
See More
“According to me, if the team has an opening where he can play, he definitely should. But to put him in the starting eleven only for him to get game time, I don’t think the team needs to do all of that. I feel that Rohit and Rahul (Dravid) will be thinking the same thing,” Bangar told Star Sports.
On the problems that have persed with Surya, he added, “The biggest factor is that boundaries don’t come that easily in the middle part of the innings. When three or four wickets go, then how do you find the boundaries is the big problem because the ball becomes old? In a T20 match, the ball remains solid for the entire innings. In ODIs, in the last five overs for each team, the ball becomes soft because of which you don’t get boundaries that easily. And the second thing is, every batsman needs to find that formula on how to score runs. And Suryakumar Yadav is a versatile player, that he definitely targets boundaries and where to hit them. He has a very good idea of where to hit them, but if there is one thing he needs to do, it is to find out how to bat between the 25th and the 40th over.”
Surya is currently part of the India squad in Sri Lanka for the Asia Cup. Having progressed through to the Super 4, the men in blue will play Pakan on Sunday in Pallekele.
