Suryakumar Yadav, the Mumbai Indians No 3, made 480 runs in his side’s victorious campaign in the just-concluded season of the Indian Premier League. He displayed calm and maturity throughout the season had almost everyone calling for his name to feature in the India squad for the tour of Australia.
But to his bitter disappointment, he didn’t feature in any of the squads. There were messages of support, including ones from Sachin Tendulkar and Ravi Shastri but it wasn’t easy for Yadav to pick himself back up.
“Frankly, I was expecting to be selected this time,” Yadav told Hindustan Times in an interview. “I was a bit disappointed when I found my name missing. I couldn’t even train that day and it was difficult to take my mind off from that dejection.”
He added: “Even Rohit (Sharma) asked me if I was disappointed and I told him I was. But never mind. I will wait for my chances. There is a lot of time to show my cricket abilities and make my case stronger for a national call-up. I hope I can score big in domestic games and then do well in the next IPL to catch the attention of the selectors.”
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Yadav has been doing well in domestic cricket for a while now but places in the India middle-order are hard to come by. To a certain extent, he has made his peace with not being selected.
“The selection is not in my hand. So, I don’t think much….Even Sachin Tendulkar paaji sent me a message asking me to continue scoring runs and I would like to use the chances and do well… I will try my best to be in contention for the World T20 team.”
‘In whose place would you have picked Surya?’
On the other hand, former India batsman and selector Devang Gandhi feels the criticism wasn’t justified.
“I would request the experts that while they are talking about Suryakumar’s exclusion, they should also tell us who should have been kept out,” Gandhi told The Times of India in an interview.
He added: “India has a huge bench strength and the selection process is often about exclusion. There can be four equally good players for one slot. Obviously, you have to keep some talented players out. Suryakumar is a brilliant player, but he will have to be patient. He must keep performing. Mayank Agarwal is one batsman who barged into the squad, consistently performing well.”