Suryakumar Yadav has retained his place in India’s 15-member squad for the upcoming ICC Cricket World Cup, despite struggling to replicate his T20 success in the 50-over format.
Bangar praised Yadav’s ability to consistently find the boundaries during his innings but noted that the 32-year-old Mumbai cricketer needs to refine his approach to ensure a steady stream of runs during the middle overs.”He (SKY) has already said that Rahul Dravid is there, and he has spoken to him. The biggest factor is that boundaries don’t come that easily in the middle part of the innings. When three or four wickets go, then how do you find the boundaries is the big problem because the ball becomes old,” Bangar said in a Star Sports show.
He further elaborated, “Suryakumar is a versatile player; he definitely targets boundaries and knows where to hit them. He has a very good idea of where to hit them, but if there is one thing he needs to do, it is to find out how to bat between the 25th and the 40th over.”
Bangar expressed his belief that Yadav is still working on a clear strategy for scoring runs during this critical phase of an ODI. He highlighted the need for Yadav to develop his own method to rotate the strike and accumulate runs during the middle overs, especially when wickets fall.
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“I don’t think he is clear in his head and heart about how to score runs in this period. He can play like he does in the T20 format, but if wickets fall, he needs to find out how to rotate strike between the 25th and the 40th over, and he needs to find his own method to score runs here, which he is obviously thinking about.”
Yadav’s ODI statistics support Bangar’s observations, with just 511 runs in 24 innings at an average of 24.33 and a strike rate of 101.39. He has managed only a couple of half-centuries, with his highest score being 64.
Regarding Yadav’s place in the team, Bangar stressed the importance of providing him with opportunities based on match situations and team requirements rather than simply including him for the sake of game time.
“According to me, if the team has an opening where he can play, he definitely should. But, to put him in the starting eleven only for him to get game time, I don’t think the team needs to do all of that,” Bangar said.
(With inputs from PTI)
