Suryakumar Yadav Keen On Becoming An All-Format Batter For Team India

Suryakumar Yadav recently earned the captaincy of Indian team in the T20I format. The Indian team witnessed major transformations after attaining the historic win of 2024 T20 World Cup. Former batter, Gautam Gambhir joined in as the new head coach who, subsequently, paved the way for Suryakumar Yadav to join as the new captain after the retirement of Rohit Sharma from the shortest format of the game. However, Surykumar Yadav didn’t earn a selection in the side’s ODI squad for the Sri Lanka series. Moreover, it seems like things would fare the same for SKY in the longer run. However, the batter has now expressed his wish to join the test setup.

"Want To Play For India In All Three Formats," Says Surykumar Yadav

Suryakumar Yadav has played only one Test match for India until now which was over a year ago. However, the batter now seems to be tracking his way back into the longest-format. The batter is ruffling some feathers in the domestic setup in order to make his way into the test format. He was initially excluded from Mumbai's young squad for the pre-season Buchi Babu Invitational tournament in Tamil Nadu. 

However, Suryakumar has now notified the Mumbai selectors of his availability for the latter half of the first-class season, which runs until the end of August. If selected, he will be playing under Sarfaraz Khan as the T20I captain has requested that the captaincy for the domestic season should remain unchanged. Consequently, Suryakumar Yadav is now anticipated to participate in Mumbai's match against Jammu and Kashmir in Salem, starting August 27.

"I want to play for India in all three formats," Suryakumar was quoted as saying by the Times of India. "Playing in Buchi Babu will give me good practice for the red-ball tournaments this season,” Suryakumar Yadav said, making his stance clear about his participation in the domestic series.

Suryakumar Yadav led India to a 3-0 victory over Sri Lanka in his first stint as full-time T20I captain. However, he was not selected for the three-match ODI series. The selection committee headed by Ajit Agarkar confirmed that Suryakumar is not currently part of their ODI plans ahead of the start of India’s Tour of Sri Lanka.

Resultantly, Suryakumar Yadav has a lot of time to take on first-class cricket as India has no T20Is scheduled until October's series against Bangladesh. Following the Buchi Babu tournament will be the Duleep Trophy. The season-opening Duleep Trophy in Anantapur will feature four teams selected by the national selectors. Surya’s last first-class match was in the Duleep Trophy in July 2023. Playing in over 82 first-class games, he has scored 5,628 runs at an average of 43.62, hitting 29 fifties and 14 hundreds.