Make no mistake, Shubman Gill is not in India’s T20 World Cup squad because his form didn’t merit a place in the XV. Ajit Agarkar, the chief selector, and Suryakumar Yadav, the captain, spoke about how it was more down to team combination rather than form, as the selectors and the team management wanted a wicketkeeper-batsman at the top and a player of a similar profile as a back-up. The bottom line is that, if Gill were setting the stands alight with his batting after returning to the T20I fold as vice-captain, he would have been the second name on the team sheet after Surya. The fact of the matter is that the 26-year-old’s highest score was 47 in 15 innings since the Asia Cup earlier this year.
Now, here is a catch. Surya has done worse this year. In 21 matches he has scored 218 runs at an average of 13.62. Some excellent stats put out by ESPNcricinfo show that he has gone without a fifty in 22 innings and made his runs at a strike-rate of 117.87. The numbers against pace are even more galling — an average of 8.11 and a strike-rate of 109.77. And Surya is struggling to force the pace against the seamers in front of the wicket, with his dismissal in the final T20I against South Africa in Ahmedabad serving as the latest example.
“Ye waala patch thoda lamba ho gaya (this bad patch has become a bit elongated),” Surya saw the lighter side of it at the team selection press conference on Saturday. “I’m sure everyone has seen this in their respective careers. I will also go over it sometime. I know what to do, I know where I’m going wrong. I have got some time to work on it. We have (the) New Zealand series coming up, and then the T20 World Cup as well. You will definitely see that Surya is back.”
Surya maintains that he is not out of form but out of runs, as he has been batting very well at the nets. All said and done, for any cricketer, it’s about the numbers on the scoreboard and the Mumbai batsman can’t be immune to the form logic.
There, though, is a difference. India have been moving like a freight train in T20Is under Surya’s captaincy and as a batsman in this format, he has a lot more credit in the bank compared to Gill. Also, with Shreyas Iyer injured, the team still doesn’t have a like-for-like replacement for Surya. Finally, with just five games to go for the World Cup, changing the skipper wasn’t an option, for that would have been pressing the panic button.
The selectors and the team management believe that Surya is too good a player in the shortest format not to get out of the rut, and as Tilak Varma had said after the series decider in Ahmedabad, it could be a matter of just one innings. Not many moons ago, he was topping the world T20I batting charts.
But Surya is 35 and at this stage of his career, does he need to change anything in search for a second wind? Zubin Bharucha, one of the most renowned coaches in the country who has mother-henned the likes of Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sanju Samson, Dhruv Jurel, Riyan Parag and Vaibhav Suryavanshi, believes that the process of learning doesn’t stop irrespective of the age and experience.
“It’s all work in progress,” Zubin said, speaking to RevSportz. “With that back-lift, which is unique and special to him (Surya), which he should never change, there are bound to be areas of the ground which will be less accessible. And he will need to work on improving his square-of-the-wicket game. For example — improving the cut shot, the pull shot and improving his on-side game.”
As Surya is struggling to go down town, especially against pace, the resurgence might lie square of the wicket. Anything less than reaching the final would be a failure for India at the T20 World Cup. And irrespective of the batting depth, the hosts need their skipper back to top fettle.
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