Indian captain Suryakumar Yadav’s bat is completely silentImage Credit source: Getty Images
Australia tour is not going very well for Team India. After losing the ODI series, the start of the T20 series was also not good for the Indian team. The first match was canceled due to rain, in which the team looked in good condition. But in the second match it had to face a crushing defeat and the reason for this was the team’s batting, which proved to be a flop. But the biggest tension in the team’s batting order is currently proving to be captain Suryakumar Yadav, whose bat is completely silent and before the T20 World Cup, this is becoming a cause of concern for Team India and the captaincy of Surya himself.
This match was played between India and Australia on Friday 31 October at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. After 3 years, Team India had come to play T20 match on this ground and once again the condition of its top order remained the same as last time. Then in the T20 World Cup 2022, 4 wickets fell for just 31 runs against Pakistan. This time 4 wickets had fallen for 32 runs, which became 5 wickets till the score of 49 and like that match, again Suryakumar Yadav failed to make any impact on this field.
When Team India had lost 2 wickets for 23 runs, then captain Surya stepped on the crease. But once again he did not fare well in front of Josh Hazlewood. In the last match, Surya had thwarted the Australian pacer to some extent but this time again the same old story was seen. Surya got a lease of life on the very second ball against Hazlewood when wicketkeeper Josh Inglis dropped his catch. But Hazlewood did not allow the Indian captain to take advantage of this and got him caught out by English on the very next ball.
In this innings, Surya faced 4 balls and returned to the pavilion after scoring only 1 run. But this is not the first time when his bat is failing like this. During the recently held Asia Cup, he was completely failing in almost all the matches including the final and could score only 72 runs in 6 innings. This series of failures of the former number-1 batsman in the ICC T20 rankings has been going on for exactly one year. After becoming the captain of the T20 team in July 2024, Surya’s form was showing ups and downs and during this period he has been able to score half-centuries only twice in 22 innings.
But it is not just that. Both of his half-centuries came last year only, in which the last fifty was scored against Bangladesh on 12 October. Since then, in the last more than 365 days, Surya has batted in a total of 16 T20 matches and in these he has not been able to score a half-century even once. What is even more worrying is that in these 16 innings he has been able to score more than 25 only twice. In this, one unbeaten inning of 47 runs came in the Asia Cup group match against Pakistan, while the other inning of 39 runs came in the previous match against Australia itself, which was washed out by rain.
The worry is not just about not being able to score a half-century, but it is also becoming difficult for Surya to stay at the crease. Even when he is spending some time, he is struggling to score runs and this is reflected in his statistics. In 2025, Surya has scored only 140 runs for Team India in 13 innings at an average of 14. The most surprising thing in this is his strike rate. Surya has scored these runs at a modest strike rate of just 113, which is much lower than his career strike rate of 163. Obviously, such performance of Surya before the T20 World Cup to be held in a few months is not good news for Team India.