If there is anyone other India batter besides Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma who has captured the imaginations of fans, it's Suryakumar Yadav. Now he may still be far from his best in ODIs, but when it comes to T20Is, there is not a single crowd-puller quite like him. Just look at his numbers from last year and you'll know. In 2022, Suryakumar was the leading scorer in T20Is amassing 1164 runs at an average of 46.56. Not only did he rise to the top of the T20I rankings for batters, SKY even plundered two centuries. Finishing the year on top, Surya began 2023 in rollicking style peeling off his third hundred for India, and although he endured a bit of a slump, SKY roared back to form for Mumbai Indians, where he racked up another 605 runs from 16 matches, notching up his maiden IPL century.
No wonder Suryakumar has quickly earned the moniker of being the most exciting India batter to watch – a tag that for long associated with AB de Villiers. Some of the shots – especially sixes – which Surya bludgeons are unexplainable, leaving even the greatest of players out of words to describe them. One of them is Surya's former India teammate Shikhar Dhawan, who is absolutely blown away seeing the level at which the 32-year-old is performing. Weighing in on the rapid pace at which cricket is evolving, Dhawan draws inspiration from India's crop of youngsters, and while Surya doesn't exactly fall in that category, he certainly has managed to wow the India opener.
"It's really good to see. Change is the only constant thing in life. You have to adapt with time. It is lovely to see how players have come up with new strategies and new ways of thinking. Even like... we've been playing for such a long time, we get so inspired by all the young players when they come up with some new shots, and personally I ask how did you play that?" ICC quoted Dhawan as saying.
{{/usCountry}}"It's really good to see. Change is the only constant thing in life. You have to adapt with time. It is lovely to see how players have come up with new strategies and new ways of thinking. Even like... we've been playing for such a long time, we get so inspired by all the young players when they come up with some new shots, and personally I ask how did you play that?" ICC quoted Dhawan as saying.
{{/usCountry}}"I was asking SKY, he hits that six and I asked him 'What do you do, man?'. So he was like, 'I just bend and I do this'. I said I am going to try that in the nets as well because the more tools you can carry, it gets easier and it's a wonderful mindset."
Shikhar Dhawan, the ICC behemoth
Dhawan himself was an exciting and promising talent for India when he burst onto the scene 10 years at the 2013 Champions Trophy. In Dhawan and Rohit Sharma, India had found a fresh opening pair which went on to establish records and achieve great things for themselves. When it comes to ICC tournaments, there are few Indian batters more successful than Dhawan. At the 2013 Champions Trophy in England, Dhawan was adjudged Player of the tournament for scoring 363 runs at an average of 90.75 including two centuries. In World Cups, Dhawan has burned up the charts with 537 runs from 10 matches (in 2015 and 2019) averaging 53.70. At 37, Dhawan may not be part of the India's set-up anymore, but the veteran India opener is still open to learning as he explained the difference in the thought process of batters then and now.
"The thought process is getting broader. Earlier our coaches used to tell us to play down the ground, you don't have to play big shots. So, we were raised with that sort of mindset but now when you see a youngster coming in, they will just go and express themselves," Dhawan added.
"So, again, the main point is when I see the younger generation, they express themselves fearlessly. Where else, we also express ourselves but we had that thing because we were mentally trained that we have to play more on the ground but the new generation, they play and they express themselves very nicely and they don’t feel that guilt as well that 'I got out this way or that way', so I feel that is the biggest change we have seen and it's amazing."