Suryakumar Yadav - Performer who excelled despite ignorance

Almost 12 years back, Mumbai was locking horns with Gujarat in a match of Vijay Hazare Trophy with some renowned face in the playing XI. The list included the likes of former domestic legend and Mumbai skipper Wasim Jaffer alongside Ajit Agarkar and Ramesh Powar. Among all these big names, there was also a 20-year-old guy who was about to play in the first match of his domestic career.

Everybody came to know this guy, Suryakumar Yadav when he played a knock of 41 runs off 35 balls with five boundaries in his debut List-A match. Since then, Suryakumar never looked back and kept impressing everyone with his performances in the domestic circuit and in the IPL as well. But still, it seemed that the selectors didn’t find his performances convincing enough to draft him into the national side.

Eventually, Surya made his first international appearance for India at the age when a lot of cricketers in the world feel that they are in the decline of their careers.

When Rohit Sharma recognised the gem despite everyone's ignorance 

Going a bit deeper in the chronological recalls, then we’ll go back to the day when the Board of Control for Cricket in India was conducting its awards in the second week of December in 2011. It was also a day Suryakumar had completed more than a year in the Indian domestic circuit. Just after the conclusion of the BCCI awards, the current Indian skipper and the then young batter Rohit Sharma came up with a forecast in the form a tweet from his official Twitter handle.

“Just got done with BCCI awards here in Chennai. Some exciting cricketers coming up. Suryakumar yadav from Mumbai to watch out for in future!” read the tweet posted by Rohit Sharma on his official Twitter handle.

Just got done with BCCI awards here in chennai..some exciting cricketers coming up..Suryakumar yadav from Mumbai to watch out for in future!

— Rohit Sharma (@ImRo45) December 10, 2011

The players like Surya are examples to prove how ignorant we are towards the talented players who are featuring for their respective states. We prefer only to talk, discuss or write mostly about the players who are playing for India in international cricket.

Unfortunately, it took almost a decade before people found that Rohit Sharma’s forecast the December 10 in 2011 was something that should’ve been paid attention to.

Announced his arrival to international cricket in style of his own kind

“There are rules to luck, not everything is chance for the wise, luck can be helped by skill,” said the renowned Spanish prose writer Baltasar Gracian in his famous book ‘The Art of Worldly Wisdom'. Suryakumar applied more or less the same philosophy when he got his break in international cricket at the age of 30.

After a long wait of 11 years, came March 18, 2021, when the 19-year-old Chembur guy of 2010 became a veteran of 77 First-Class games alongside numerous List-A and T20 matches to his name in the domestic circuit. Interestingly, he made his international debut for India at the time when most of the experts were waiting for him to fail and they could call him incompetent for the highest level of cricket.

India were facing England in the penultimate and must-win encounter of the five-match T20I series in 2021 with 1-2 scoreline in favour of the visitors. Skipper Rohit Sharma and senior batter KL Rahul came to open the innings for India. Unfortunately, Rohit fell prey to England speedster Jofra Archer on the third ball of the fourth over.

Then came the 30-year-old debutant Suryakumar in the middle with his shoulders high to rescue India after losing the first wicket only at the score of 21 runs. Archer took his run-up on the fourth ball of the over. Bowled a short one on the leg stump, Surya moved inside the line, smashed a beautiful pull over fine leg while resting on one leg and it went for a maximum.

A massive six on the first ball of his international career, an arrival of one of its own kind. Everybody in the stadium or those watching on their TV sets were overwhelmed by seeing an exceptional talent getting unleashed in front of the cricketing world.

It appeared as if, SKY (fondly called) was just waiting for the day and had all things already planned in his head. Everything went like a dream for the then 30-year-old debutant in his first-ever international match. Eventually, he ended up winning the Player of the Match award for his amazing half-century-knock of 57 runs off just 31 balls with six boundaries and three maximums to his name.

Other than that, he also took two crucial catches to dismiss English opener Jason Roy and star all-rounder Ben Stokes who were threatening to take the game away from India with their respective knocks of 40 and 46 runs.

The time when cricketing world came to know that SKY is really limitless

Only in a span of almost 18 months since his debut, SKY has gone limitless in terms of achieving milestones in his T20I career. After featuring in just 34 T20Is, the Indian version of Mr. 360 became the fastest to score 1000 runs in T20Is surpassing the star Australian batting all-rounder Glenn Maxwell. 

The explosive Indian sensation completed 1000 T20I runs off just 573 balls with an amazing strike rate of 174.52. Earlier, Maxwell held the record with 604 balls and at a strike rate of 165.56. 

Continuing his sensational form, Suryakumar Yadav also happened to break multiple records with his brilliant half-century knock of 69 runs against Australia in the final match of the three-match T20I series before they faced South Africa for same number of fixtures in the format.

Be it, becoming the first batter to score the most sixes in a calendar year surpassing Pakistan’s star batter Mohammad Rizwan or becoming the first Indian to score most runs in a calendar year Surya is unstoppable at the moment. He now has more than 50 sixes to his name in 2022 alongside more than 800 runs in the same calendar year with an average of almost 40.

Cemented his place and proved a point to Indian management 

34 T20Is, 1045 runs with an average of 38.70 and a remarkable century on English soil along with nine impressive half-centuries. 13 ODIs, 340 runs with an average of 34.00 and two half-centuries.

Let's put aside these stats, from being almost an over-aged debutant to be the World number two T20I batter at the age of 32 with just 16 rating points behind number one Mohammad Rizwan, Suryakumar Yadav has proved how much he could’ve contributed to the Indian cricket if the selectors and the management hadn't ignored him earlier.

It’s hard to predict how many years of cricket are left in him but it’s apt to say that he’s going to be remembered as a talent that got the nod a bit later than when it actually deserved.