From SKY-fall to SKY-ball: Suryakumar Yadav sounds battle cry with India’s T20 World Cup title defence imminent

After a year in the wilderness, Suryakumar Yadav rediscovered his touch in Raipur, lifting India with a captain’s knock ahead of a home T20 World Cup.

Suryakumar Yadav never stops smiling. Not when things are going well, and not when they aren’t. Not when he is scoring bruising runs, and not even when his bat goes cold. The smile reflects the gamut of his emotions -- from rueful, resigned and wry to delighted, ecstatic and joyous – but it has never been despairing.

India's captain Suryakumar Yadav celebrates his half century during the second T20I cricket match between India and New Zealand in Raipur (PTI)

On Friday night in Raipur, Suryakumar’s smile mushroomed into the broadest of grins. A grin of long-awaited satisfaction and vindication, sure, but also of relief, as if a giant burden had been lifted off his broad shoulders. Truth to tell, it had been.

Watching India’s Twenty20 International captain bat through all of 2025, you wondered if this was really the man who had occupied the status of the No. 1 batter in the world for a monumental 466 days, or if an impostor had wended his way to the middle.

A year in the wilderness, then a night of vindication

Watching him bat on Friday, you wondered if this was really the same man who had struggled for impact for an entire 12 months, the man whose patented tradecraft had gone AWOL and who seemed a pale shadow of his imperious self. The perpetual smile notwithstanding.

His annus horribilis out of the way, Suryakumar has hit his straps at the right time. It wasn’t as if 2025 wasn’t important, but 2026? Well, it isn’t just another year. It is the year of the T20 World Cup. A home T20 World Cup, at that. And Suryakumar isn’t just another batter within the setup, he is the leader of the group, the captain tasked with emulating Rohit Sharma and Mahendra Singh Dhoni before him and holding aloft the T20 World Cup trophy. History beckons the Mumbaikar; no country has won this crown thrice, no team has successfully defended its title, no nation has triumphed in its backyard. To defeat history and to repeat history, as Rohit cheekily says in a television promo, India needed their captain to step up. Looks like Suryakumar has.

There were signs in the first game in Nagpur two nights back, when the 35-year-old made a pleasing 32 in game one against New Zealand. But sandwiched as it was between the Abhishek Sharma blitzkrieg at the top and the Rinku Singh carnage at the end, it remained a mere footnote. In Raipur, even though he played second fiddle to Ishan Kishan during a third-wicket stand of 122 when his contribution was less than a third, Suryakumar stepped out of the shadows emphatically, rolling the clock back and invoking the pre-2025 avatar that made him such a compelling force in the 20-over format.

There was one gorgeous bowler’s back-drive in his first few deliveries, but for most of the Powerplay – the skipper walked in at No. 4 to the eighth ball of India’s potentially stiff chase of 209 – he was a mute spectator as the little left-hander at the other end got to work. The captain in Suryakumar was thrilled that his mate was picking the bones off the bowlers, but the batter in him was getting increasingly frustrated at not getting enough of the strike. In the end though, he didn’t allow that frustration to get the better of him, biding his time and then burying the Kiwis under an avalanche of breathtaking stroke-making.

When he is purring along, Suryakumar is a veritable force whilst driving in front of the wicket. Agreed, his signature shot is the ridiculous pick-up from outside off that lands in the stands behind fine-leg – how on earth does he consistently get the ball there, defying physics and convention and everything science and batting? – but his imperious driving is the surest indication that the captain is switched on. When, during his extended drought that netted him a mere 218 runs in 19 innings with a highest of 47 and an average of 13.62, Suryakumar insisted that he wasn’t ‘out of form, just out of runs’, we sniggered. We all did. He didn’t just look out of runs, he definitely looked out of form – just 18 fours and 10 sixes in 19 visits to the crease, for a strike-rate of 123.16, didn’t suggest he was hitting the ball well.

Over the last three nights, there has been a perceptible change, whose genesis lies in hard work at the nets, yes, but also quality time in Mumbai with family and close friends. The difference from the last year is starkly obvious – already, 114 runs in 59 deliveries spread over two games, among them 13 fours and five sixes (strike-rate 193.22). The spring is back, as pronounced as the runs, the smile less affected and more natural.

When he brought up his first half-century in 13 months and 26 innings, Suryakumar touched the ground in reverence, respect and enormous relief. “SKY’s back,” the fans screamed. “Let the SKY continue to be the limit, at least for the next six weeks.”