Does Suryakumar Yadav deserve a place in India’s Test team?

There has been a lot of talk about India's 360-degree batter Suryakumar Yadav deserving a place in India’s Test team after showcasing his orthodox batting in the short format for the Men in Blue, where he equalled the record of Indian captain Rohit Sharma by scoring his 5th T20I hundred. However, when it comes to the long format, he fails to show the same class, which we all witnessed in the ICC Men’s ODI World Cup 2023 and the only Test match he played for the Indian team against Australia in 2023. He has scored just 773 runs in 37 ODI matches with 0 tons to his name. Meanwhile, the same batter has 5 tons in the 20-over format with over 2000 runs in 71 games for the Indian team.

We are talking about this because after playing a crucial role in India’s World Cup with his impeccable batting skills, Indian fans are looking forward to seeing the star player in the long format too, which they are going to play in the upcoming months. India will compete in the ICC Champions Trophy and ICC World Test Championship next year, which are ICC tournaments. Considering Suryakumar Yadav's experience, he has been regarded as one of the senior players of the Indian national team after taking over the captaincy following the retirement of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli.

Irrespective of being a top player in the short format and the captain of the Indian national cricket team in the short format, he needs to prove himself by performing well in the upcoming domestic season of the Duleep Trophy and the ongoing Buchi Babu Tournament, where he is playing for the Mumbai team along with Shreyas Iyer.

However, if we talk about SKY’s performance in domestic cricket, he scored 73 runs in his debut Ranji match for Mumbai in 2010 and, in the next season, scored 754 runs from nine games, which was the most by anyone from his team. This also includes a double-century against Orissa in his third match of the season, and a hundred in the next. Later, he capped the season with yet another hundred in the Duleep Trophy.

The 33-year-old cricketer also captained the Mumbai Ranji team for a brief period during the 2014–15 Ranji Trophy season, where he scored 690 runs across ten matches in the tournament. Not only in Ranji games, but the star player has also scored crucial runs in the Vijay Hazare Trophy tournament too. However, looking at his place in India’s Test team, it is difficult to say at which position he could play for the Indian team as the top 4 positions are already fixed with Rohit and Yashasvi opening the innings and Virat and Gill coming to bat at numbers 3 and 4. The only spot left is at number 5, where the Indian team has given a lot of chances to players like KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Dhruv Jurel, Rajat Patidar, and Sarfaraz Khan to prove themselves perfect for the position.

However, no batters have solidified their positions, which is why they have been seen switching places in the playing XI. Looking at the above candidates who have been seen coming in and going out of the team, it’s hard to see Suryakumar Yadav representing India’s Test team, having played just 1 game so far in his international Test career, that too in 2023 against Australia.

Another main reason to say this is after Rishabh Pant's comeback to the Indian team following a horrific car accident that kept him out for almost 2 years from the game. Despite being out and bedridden for several months, he made a strong comeback to international cricket by being one of the architects of India’s World Cup win.