Former India batter Sanjay Manjrekar has criticised Suryakumar Yadav’s excessively cautious batting approach in the ongoing T20 World Cup, insisting that it sets a “dangerous” template for the team in the format. On the eve of India’s Super 8 opener against South Africa at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, Manjrekar called out the India captain’s watchful batting which was unlike his usual avatar that bats with abandon.
Manjrekar lauded the captain’s 84-run knock in the tournament opener against the United States of America in Mumbai, lifting the side from the doldrums — from 77 for six — to a match-winning knock with his calibrated approach. However, with a shaky top-order display thus far in the tournament, Suryakumar has continued to maintain the tempo throughout the group stages.
“There is something that I am seeing in Suryakumar Yadav which I’m not liking too much. 77-6, India against USA, at the Wankhede, and Suryakumar Yadav had to change his game, which he did brilliantly. Just slowed down a little bit, and then exploded, and got a great score, player of the match, and everything,” Manjrekar said on his Instagram page.
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“Since then, I think he is taking that a bit too far. Against Pakistan, where India lost a couple of wickets, he really pulled down the shutters quite a lot. Him and Tilak Varma are both playing slightly conservatively, and in the end, what happens is that people like Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, and Rinku Singh, are not really tapped into resources as much,” he continued.
Suryakumar has aggregated 164 runs so far in the tournament, only second to Ishan Kishan among Indian batters. However, his sluggish 136.13 strike rate stands way behind Kishan who leads the charts with a 202.29 strike rate.
“In T20 cricket, that is a dangerous thing to do, where a senior player or captain feels like he has got to stay in, especially while batting first. When you are setting targets of 200 plus, if you have somebody in the top four who believes that he is the guy who has got to control the innings and make sure he is the one who will take India to a certain score, that is a very dangerous tactic. No batter must think like that. So, Surya must be careful about that,” Manjrekar explained.
