By Boria Majumdar
Suryakumar Yadav has seen it all. For a while in 2020, we had all questioned the criteria for making the Indian team. The one and only index should be performance. However, in the case of Suryakumar, there was reason to be believe justice wasn’t served. He performed superbly in the IPL. He did so consistently, and also did well in domestic cricket in the 2019-2020 season. And yet, he was made to wait far longer than he perhaps needed to.
I remember speaking to Surya when he wasn’t getting picked. My questions were clear – How does a player who is perhaps expecting a national call-up take a disappointment like this? What impact can it have on his mental equilibrium? Could Surya overcome his selection blues?
To his credit, Surya did just that. Every opportunity he got, he made it count. Every match was redemption for him, and a platform to showcase his incredible skills and justify the tag as the world’s No.1-ranked T20 batter. In the last T20 World Cup in Australia, he was India’s best batter. Many believed that he was also the best in the world.
Life had come full circle for Surya. Or so one thought.
For the last month or so, he hasn’t been himself. Three consecutive first-ball ducks in the ODIs against Australia, and many have started to question his ability yet again. He isn’t good enough for the 50-over format is the murmur. And then the start to the IPL has been anything but good. Surya hasn’t really looked at ease. Is it fear of failure? The pressure of expectations? Restlessness? Whatever it is, things have gone south for India’s best T-20 batter.
It is classic sport. It tests you however good you are. And if you are a true devotee, you will surely find a way out.
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None of this is new. Sport, as Abhinav Bindra says, teaches you to lose. In sport, you will always lose more than you will win. Sachin Tendulkar was the greatest to play the sport. He scored 51 hundreds in 200 Tests. Simply put, he did not score a century in 149 Test matches. That’s sport. Real, not reel. No retakes.
In sport, you always fail in public. In front of millions. Just like Sachin did in 2007, when he was bowled for a duck in a crucial World Cup match against Sri Lanka. He wanted to retire. Give it all up. Thankfully, he did not. Sir Viv’s call made a difference. He came back, with the support system around him backing him up, and won the World Cup in 2011. In public, in front of the watching millions.
That’s why sport is unique. The only thing that allows you to fail in public, and then come back and win in front of the same audience. Surya will as well. He is a champion of this generation, and he too will come back a better player and better leader. That’s what will define him. The comeback. To win it for the Mumbai Indians fans. His own fans. And this is when the fans need to stand by him and the team.
Take the Chicago Cubs. From 1908 to 2016 at Wrigley Field. No trophy, and yet the fandom kept growing. That’s what defines a fan. Win or lose, a Sachin fan at the age of 8 will die a Sachin fan at the age of 80. The only constant in life. All else, if you think, changes. Food habits, dress, political understanding, and relationships, but fandom in sport stays constant.
For Surya, there are examples before him.
The Kolkata Knight Riders’ campaign in 2021 has many life lessons to it. First, it was a lesson in never say never. KKR’s campaign was all doom and gloom in April and May 2021. But come September, they were a different team with a very different mindset. Things do get better after all. For KKR, it was about self-belief and how it rubs off on the people around you. The introduction of Venky Iyer at the top made Shubman Gill and Rahul Tripathi very different players with far less pressure on them. It was the perfect life lesson. Despite all the negativity around, they did not give up.
The journey is never over. Surya will know that things change, and change is the only constant. For a true devotee of sport, it has to happen. And will.