Rahul Dravid's honest verdict on Suryakumar Yadav's concerning ODI form as World Cup audition nears end

Ahead of the match, India head coach Dravid gave his honest verdict on the Suryakumar's continued slump as the audition for the World Cup squad nears it end.

Tuesday will be India's last ODI match before things proceed towards the Asia Cup following which the management and selectors will have a final 15 in their mind. They do have another bilateral series before the World Cup, a three-match contest at home against Australia, but team is unlikely to experiment then and would only feature their main XI as final preparation for the big tournament. This implies that the Trinidad match next week will be Suryakumar Yadav's final chance to buy himself some more time, if not make his case completely. And ahead of the match, India head coach Rahul Dravid gave his honest verdict on the Suryakumar's continued slump as the audition for the World Cup squad nears it end.

Rahul Dravid has his say on Suryakumar Yadav's slump in ODI

Given a golden run in the format since the start of this year in the absence of a recovering Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar failed to make the most of it. Famous for his 360-degree game in the shortest format, where he even rose to the top spot in the ICC rankings, the 32-year-old has failed to emulate the same in 50-overs cricket.

In the first match of the series against West Indies, Suryakumar managed 19 runs before being dismissed lbw while trying to play the sweep shot against a delivery from Gudakesh Motie. In the second game, he gave away his option ton sweep but ended up throwing his start again while trying to cut Motie for 24. The two scores added to Suryakumar's tally of 17 innings since his last fifty, during which he managed only 251 runs at an average of about 13 with only one score above 25.

Speaking to the media after the second ODI match in Barbados where India lost by six wickets, Dravid admitted that Suryakumar has failed to live up to the expectation after the high standards he set for himself in T20 cricket but revealed that the he still has the team's backing despite the numbers.

"Look, Surya is a really good player, there's no doubt about it," Dravid said. "His performances have shown that, especially in T20 cricket, even in domestic white-ball cricket. He has some very good performances. Unfortunately, he'd be the first one to admit his ODI numbers aren't up to his high standards he's set in T20s. But he's also learning about one-day cricket.

"He's played a lot of competitive T20 cricket through the IPL before he made his India debut, but in terms of one-day cricket he hasn't played that much, there's no IPL in one-day cricket. So I think he's also learning, trying to figure out how to bat in those middle overs. He's a talent, he's a really good player, we want to give him as many opportunities as we can. Upto him now to take those opportunities and use them. But yeah, in the kind of set-up we are, we like to give people as many chances we possibly can."

Suryakumar would want to have an impactful show in Trinidad in the 3rd ODI with Iyer and KL Rahul set to return for Asia Cup after injury break and hence it would become difficult for him to get another opportunity.