Live Score
Cricket Teams
Cricket PlayersWhy fear when SKY is here? Suryakumar Yadav's masterclass rescues India from embarrassing banana skin
Suryakumar Yadav has laid down the gauntlet. It’s up to his colleagues to pick it up and run with it. The opponents ahead have been forewarned
Suryakumar Yadav stood alongside Monank Patel, the United States captain, by the side of the pitch with match referee Andy Pycroft fussing over them. Ravi Shastri was waiting for his cue to kick off the toss proceedings when, out of the corner of his eye, India’s skipper espied a familiar figure striding along the outfield of the Wankhede Stadium, a little distance away from the centre of the ground.
Disregarding protocol, Suryakumar abandoned his station and charged towards the man clad in black, a stylish jacket complementing his formal trousers. Rohit Sharma had just finished discharging his duties as the tournament ambassador of the T20 World Cup on Saturday evening and was making his way out of the ground, but Suryakumar wasn’t going to allow his former skipper to skip by unacknowledged.
The present met the past as Suryakumar greeted his leader with a broad smile. Rohit shook the younger man’s hand warmly, then exhorted his successor to return to his coin-tossing duties.
In that moment when the two shook hands, it was as if Rohit had passed on an unseen superpower to the man tasked with defending the World Cup India had won under the older Mumbaikar in Bridgetown in June 2024. During his tenure as the country’s most adventurous captain whose trend-setting exploits haven’t quite received the due they must, Rohit had disregarded individual targets and calibrated his game to suit the demands of the new era of firebrand batsmanship.
His mantra of team before self has comprehensively rubbed off on all his colleagues; the clearest affirmation that Rohit has left the 20-over team in safe hands came over the next two hours, when Suryakumar played one of the great knocks in recent memory to help his side escape a slippery banana skin in India’s opening league fixture.
Also Read: Suryakumar Yadav's smartest T20 knock helps India avoid a banana skin in their World Cup 2026 opener vs USA
When Monank called right and asked India to bat first, the large Saturday audience at the Wankhede, and millions parked in front of their television sets, braced for a murderous assault by India’s left-heavy batting group on the semi-professionals from the home of the brave. After all, in the last month and a half, India pulverised more experienced and celebrated bowling attacks from South Africa and New Zealand. Whispers of ‘300’ started to do the rounds once the pundits pronounced the surface a ‘belter’, even though there was a reasonable covering of grass. How could you blame them when the batting order ran from Kishan and Abhishek through Tilak, Suryakumar, Dube, Rinku, Pandya and Axar?
With 45 minutes of the start of India’s defence of their title, a deafening hush descended on the Wankhede. A pin dropping could have matched the decibel levels of a fighter aircraft screeching towards a take-off. The Americans – okay, not quite Americans but those representing America – had shown the temerity to not just challenge India but also rock them sensationally. Abhishek, the No. 1 T20I batter in the universe, had been dismissed for a golden duck on his World Cup debut. Shadley van Schalkwyk, a 37-year-old from Cape Town with just 15 wickets from 14 previous T20Is, had taken three wickets in five deliveries in the final over of the PowerPlay. India were rattled, on the hop, with nowhere to hide, at 77 for six with 44 deliveries left in the innings. The mother of all upsets loomed as David, ranked a lowly No. 18, had the world’s most powerful outfit, Goliath, in his crosshairs.
India were left with Suryakumar and Axar, held back at No. 8, and the bowlers – Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Siraj on his T20I comeback after 18 months, and Varun Chakravarthy – to scramble to respectability, if not safety. After a horrendous 2025 when the runs would simply not come, Suryakumar had begun the new year in a blaze of glory against New Zealand with three stunning half-centuries in five innings and the Player of the Series honours. He had to do all the heavy lifting; not only had he to stack up a majority of the runs, but he also had to do so quickly while minimising risks so that he could bat through the remaining overs. Suryakumar had done special things in the past, but now, under such immense pressure, how would he hold up?
The skipper was fortunate that, when on 15, he was put down on his follow-through by Shubham Ranjane. India would then have been 63 for five in 10 overs, game over, almost. Refusing to look the gift horse in the mouth, the 35-year-old embarked on the most stirring rescue act, bringing his experience, his relative familiarity with an unusual Wankhede strip, and his immense belief in himself, into play to baulk, thwart, defy and eventually decimate the bowling.
The Americans came with excellent plans and fields. For Suryakumar, their approach revolved around going wide of the off-stump with the pacers, bringing fine-leg and square-leg into the circle and packing the off-side boundary. Their execution was spot-on, but they hadn’t bargained for the Indian captain’s innovativeness and adaptability. More than once, Suryakumar shuffled well across his stumps, fetched the ball from the wide guideline outside off and, surreally, guided it over or behind square with a supple wrist of steel, finding himself watching the ball sail through the air as his backside hugged the turf. He drove ferociously down the ground. When he went aerial, it was with the surety of purpose and the exemplariness of timing. He coaxed and cajoled 84 runs out of the rest of the batters when India ran out of time. From 21 off 22 when Hardik Pandya was dismissed, Suryakumar finished unbeaten on 84 off 49, 10 fours and two sixes – that’s 63 runs from 27 balls without ever bordering on the outrageous. If there’s been a better knock of late…
Suryakumar has laid down the gauntlet. It’s up to his colleagues to pick it up and run with it. The opponents ahead have been forewarned. This SKY, he knows a thing or three about stretching the limits.
