Boria Majumdar in Dubai
It was 3am Dubai time and Suryakumar Yadav had just finished eating some food when he walked into the room at the Taj where we had planned the interview. He had a chocolate cake in his hand and said to me, “Dada, aap ke liye hai. Aaj to banta hai [This is for you. Today, it’s a must].” That was what started the conversation. And Surya did not hold back.
“I will not lie to you,” he told me. “If you measured my heartbeat at that time, it would have been 150 plus [beats a minute]. At one point, from overs 11-12, I kept pacing up and down in the dressing room. I just couldn’t sit with all the tension. And I told the coaches: how can you deal with this? There was a lot of pressure.”
That’s what India dealt with better. Even at 20-3, not once did the team lack belief. In fact, India were confident because they had the extra batter. “It was Gauti bhai’s call,” said Surya, crediting his coach. “Hardik [Pandya] tried his best and couldn’t make it. That’s when Gauti bhai said Shivam [Dube] will open the bowling. I asked him if he was convinced, and he was absolutely certain. I agreed and we went with it. See what he did. That’s why I say that with Gauti bhai, I share a very special bond. Every two to three overs, I look at the dugout to see what he is trying to tell me.”
Was this the toughest tournament he had played, and had there ever been one which he had won but did not get the trophy, I asked him. Surya was candid. “This will surely be one of the toughest and most challenging tournaments that I have been part of,” he said. “We won the T20 World Cup last year, but this was hugely challenging. I have to agree to this.
“And yes, it has never happened that we have won a competition, but did not get the trophy. But you know what? At times, you don’t need the physical trophy. When you see your people celebrate, you know you have done something really nice and that’s far bigger than a trophy.”
As we wrapped up the chat by feeding each other cake, I told him that I had never heard of someone with the stature of an Asian Cricket Council (ACC) President leaving the stadium with the trophy, which had actually been won by India!
But then, this Asia cup was never ordinary. No scriptwriter could have written this. It was real, not reel, and this is why sport can never ever be matched.
Surya, many congratulations, and your gesture of donating your entire tournament fee to the armed forces will resonate with me for a long, long time. Go well.
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Check out the full interview here
EXCLUSIVE:
Inside Team India’s Asia Cup Triumph with Captain Suryakumar Yadav
“Batsmen win you matches, but bowlers win you tournaments.”
He opens up on his unique approach to captaincy, the stress of playing India vs. Pakistan three times in 15 days, the influence of… pic.twitter.com/zcwYCtpfEP
— RevSportz Global (@RevSportzGlobal) September 29, 2025