SKY of hope for NZ, India
Nagpur: Skipper Suryakumar Yadav would want the attacking batter in him to front up and bolster his leadership against New Zealand when the five-match T20I series gets underway here on Wednesday, serving as a final dress rehearsal for India’s World Cup title defence in less than three weeks’ time.
Since Suryakumar took over as India’s T20 skipper in 2024, the results have been stunningly good with a winning percentage of more than 72 per cent. It papered over the skipper’s woeful form with the willow for quite a while but not anymore.
The Indian T20 outfit has been on autopilot mode during the last two years with an odd defeat here and there being small blemishes for a crack team made up of top quality IPL performers knowing their roles to the ‘T’. However, the pressure of playing at home amid expectations that India become the first ever team to defend its title will weigh heavily on Suryakumar’s mind going into the New Zealand series.
New Zealand, in the past one year, has achieved many firsts, including a Test series whitewash and a first ever bilateral ODI series win in India.
But when it comes to T20Is, India under Suryakumar have been a different beast having won 18 out of 25 games, largely due to Abhishek Sharma’s blazing starts and Varun Chakravarthy’s bamboozling performances in middle overs of opposition innings.
New Zealand have won 13 out of their 21 T20Is post the 2024 T20 World Cup.
With Devon Conway, skipper Mitchell Santner, world’s premier T20I seamer Jacob Duffy and the duo of Daryl Mitchell and Glenn Phillips in their ranks, New Zealand are as strong an opposition as one can expect. It also means that the defending champions will get to make perfect World Cup preparations.
In this backdrop, it is Indian skipper Suryakumar, whose poor form has been the weak link of a formidable team.
Unarguably, 2025 was his worst in India colours with only 218 runs from 19 games without a single fifty and a strike rate of 123 plus. It made matters worse that he got himself down to No.4 in order to allow Tilak Varma to get a longer run at No.3. Bowlers across the globe have found out that straight deliveries at hard lengths can keep him quiet and conjectures about the state of his right wrist have only made things difficult.
A non-performing captain slowly loses respect of the dressing room and that is the last thing that the man from Mumbai’s Chembur would want going into the
T20 World Cup.
