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Cricket Players'AB, you're not reading the ball, just give strike to Virat': De Villiers' own example for out-of-form Suryakumar Yadav
AB de Villiers didn't mince his words as he talked about Suryakumar Yadav's poor form. But he also gave his own example to back the MI batter.
The Mumbai Indians endured a big defeat in their opening game of the 2023 Indian Premier League season against the Royal Challengers Bangalore on Sunday night. The side conceded an eight-wicket loss as RCB chased down a 172-run target with 23 balls remaining in the innings; the Rohit Sharma-led side endured a frustrating batting performance with Tilak Varma largely being the saving grace, as he remained unbeaten on 84 off just 46 deliveries.
Mumbai Indians had a disastrous previous season when the side finished at the bottom of the table, and this year, one of the major worries for the MI team management has been the form of their star batter, Suryakumar Yadav. The 32-year-old made his name with explosive performances in the Indian Premier League, that eventually earned him a maiden India call-up in 2021. Since then, ‘SKY’ – as he is fondly known – has cemented his place in the limited-overs squads in the international setup. But earlier this year, Suryakumar endured a series of rough outings and in the ODI series against Australia right before the IPL, the batter registered three-successive golden ducks.
In MI's game against RCB, Suryakumar was far from his best as he scored 15 off 16 deliveries. Following another dull outing, former South African batter AB de Villiers – with whom Suryakumar is often compared to because of similar 360-degree hitting approach – spoke in great detail about the India batter's form; de Villiers insisted that Suryakumar might need to go back to his “basics” and start over.
“He is probably in that phase now where he needs to do something. But the secret of it all is not to panic and not to change your game plan. He has got to stick to what has been working for him over the years. Yes, maybe, he can try and remember ‘what are my basics’ or ‘what did I do very well when I was just consistently scoring runs’ and because obviously he took his game to a completely different level,” de Villiers said, as quoted by PTI.
De Villiers further said that Suryakumar will have to forget the expectations on him.
“It is not a bad thing just to come a level down and spend a little time in there before you pop out again. You cannot always score 100 off 40 balls – it is not always going to happen. That is something I had to learn the hard way with the Chinnaswamy crowd going, expecting me to score a hundred in every game.
"I sometimes had to tell myself, ‘you know what AB let’s be honest here, you are not reading the ball very. Just make sure you go run-a-ball and give Virat the strike or just get someone else on’. And then slowly and surely I get one good shot and then I am back in the game.
“There will always be a sign when you get into good form; there will be a bad delivery from the bowler or you will hit a good straight drive and then you can be say ‘hold on, I am back in form and let’s hurt the bowlers’. You just have to manage the gears – I call them gears between first and the fifth gear, ‘where I am at the moment’.
“He is probably in the second gear at the moment. Respect the fact that you are in second gear, find a way to get to the third and you can push from there,” said de Villiers.
