The empire that Suryakumar Yadav has built is intimidating. On Sunday, they crushed a highly-competent New Zealand brigade with an infallible ruthlessness reminiscent of Australia’s white-ball domination at the turn of the century. On a flat deck, the multi-skilled bowling firm, without the regulars Arshdeep Singh and Varun Chakaravarthy, restricted the visitors to 153. In 45 minutes of an unfettered onslaught, in merely 10 overs, they wrapped up the game and series, kissed an early good night to the Guwahati crowd, and sung a sinister war-cry to those plotting to upset the World Cup defence.
Beating this India requires a tremendous deal of skill, fortune and tenacity. Match-winners stare from every corner, even from the bench. Imagine someone as gifted as ferrying drinks; or condemned to the domestic field, or the luxury to ignore and . To defeat India, India has to defeat itself first.
Nothing fazes them. A wicket of the first ball, no problem, no panic, no fuss. Ishan Kishan retorted with a pair of sixes and four. The pressure was instantly reversed. By the third over, India had rubbed one third of the required runs. Kishan departed for 28 from 13 balls. But India ripped the acquired wisdom of decelerating. When the power-play ended, India had raced to 94, with Abhishek shellacking the second fastest half-century by an Indian. He would soon get bored of rewriting his own records.
The bowlers were no ordinary men. Matt Henry has scared India numerous times in the past; Kyle Jamieson once cost Rs 15 crore in the auction; Jacob Duffy topped the ICC bowling charts in the middle of 2025. But all were made to look like mere props on the stage, dancing to Abhishek’s blistering beats. He faced merely 20 balls, the time it took for batsmen to get off the mark in a different era, to crunch an unbeaten 68. The captain couldn’t resist joining the party, and continued his renaissance with a 26-ball 57 not out, replete with Surya-esque improvisational brushstrokes. Like hitmen kept abreast of the action, and twitched restlessly on their chairs in the dug-out. The batting is so fearsome a proposition that no score looks defensible. “Maybe 300,” as Mitchell Santner said in Raipur. Maybe, not even 300. India’s batsmen are redefining the boundaries of T20 batting.
The lone strand of worry is that they don’t have a batsman who could switch to second gear on a bumpy road. But now the bumps are for their opponents. When India batted, the surface resembled a freshly-tarred six-lane highway. You could smell the tarmac. When New Zealand batted it was akin to a dug-up path of gravel.
Like a Boa Constrictor, India’s multi-utility bowling pack strangled New Zealand’s batsmen to the bones. The tessellation of skills overwhelmed them. Harshit Rana, steadily growing as a guileful new-ball operator, interchanged lengths and speed. On bad days, which are getting rarer, he could be a scattergun, but when he hits his straps, he is an uncanny bowler. He is not supersonic, but batsmen cannot line him up, because he suddenly slips a fast and heavy ball. He doesn’t swing or seam the ball exaggeratedly, but one ball just shades away or tucks in a wee bit to kiss the edge. The slower cutter is well-disguised, without any discernible change in arm speed. The team management’s faith in him is not unjustified. For the fifth time in the white-ball series, he devoured Devon Conway, this time with a full ball that stuck a trifle on the surface.
The real revelation was . Making his comeback after 11 months, he displayed little rust, rifling in a first over of immaculate incision. The first ball was shortish, which Tim Seifert hit straight to the fielder. The next five balls were identical—all in the 100-106 kph speed-range, landing just outside the off-stump, largely on good length, sliding into the right-handers, tempting them to cut, but the space was not quite there. It was a textbook example of bowling to the field. He doesn’t possess the variations of or Varun, but is a stickler for discipline, rarely erring lengths, and forcing batsmen to pursue risks. His one-run over stemmed the flow of fours, and set off India’s period of thrift.
Unless he errs in length, he is a difficult bowler to attack. He is so brisk that batsmen are wary of coming down the track; he doesn’t toss the ball up either. He is always bowling into the stumps, hence difficult to cut fine, or paddle. Sweep is a stroke batsmen have employed effectively against him, especially to dishevel his lengths, but Phillips, Seifert and Mark Chapman were all risk-reverse. Including his first two overs and one apiece delivered by the immaculate and Kuldeep Yadav saw the visitors squeeze only 11 runs and lost Seifert, his off-stump detonated by a Bumrah pearler.
Then, of course, there was Bumrah. He is an inevitability in these times. His good days come glued like railway carriages that he is often mentioned only if he’s endured a bad day. New Zealand were meted out no such mercies, as he whipped up two spells of extraordinary fire and hostility. He, in essence, is the poster boy of the intimidating empire that has built.
Brief Scores: India 155 for 2 (Abhishek 68*, Suryakumar 57*, Kishan 28, Henry 1-28) beat New Zealand 153 for 9 (Phillips 48, Bumrah 3-17, Bishnoi 2-18, Pandya 2-23) by eight wickets.
