Aakash Chopra, a former Indian cricket player, has been blunt in his criticism of Suryakumar Yadav‘s recent batting slump. As the team’s captain and a crucial member of the batting unit, Chopra believes that Suryakumar, who has averaged a pitiful 13.22 and scored just 119 runs in his last ten Twenty20 International innings, needs to improve.
Chopra emphasised that the Indian captain’s primary responsibility was to be among the runs, not only to manage fields and be present for tosses. The Agra native further emphasised that, with the crucial T20 World Cup 2026 starting on February 7, Suryakumar has not been able to rack up strong scores in the game’s shortest format.
Although you are the team’s captain, a captain’s duties extend beyond simply managing the bowlers and throwing the ball. Developing a strategy is only one aspect of it. Your main responsibility if you bat in the top four is to score runs. There have been a lot of matches. In a video on his YouTube channel, Chopra stated, “It’s been a problem on both sides of the IPL if you have an average of 14 in 17 innings and the strike rate is also not very good, you don’t have a single fifty, and you have crossed 25 just twice.”
Chopra also considered the performance of Shubman Gill, the opening batsman and Suryakumar’s backup. Notably, in the current five-match series against South Africa, the star batsman has only managed four runs, including a duck, in the first two games and has been struggling to get going in the 20-over format.
“You won’t be as confident when you start the [T20] World Cup if you are playing at No. 3 or No. 4 and aren’t scoring runs, and they aren’t being scored regularly and over a long period of time.
Therefore, it is crucial that captain Suryakumar Yadav and vice-captain Shubman Gill score runs,” he continued.
India and the Proteas are presently playing a five-match series. So far, Suryakumar and Shubman Gill’s outings have not been the finest. In the first two games of the assignment, the pair has only managed to score 21 runs in four innings, which is a poor result considering how little the Indian batting unit has contributed.
On December 14, the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium in Dharamshala will host the third Twenty20 International of the series. Throughout the rest of the series, the Men in Blue will be hoping that the Suryakumar-Gill combination will start to perform well.
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