Former India cricketer Robin Uthappa stated that Suryakumar Yadav’s prolonged spell of poor form and no runs even in the Indian Premier League (IPL 2026) was the last straw for the BCCI selection committee to decide to drop him from India’s T20I team.
Surya has a stellar T20I captaincy record and recently led the Men in Blue to victory at the T20 World Cup. With just 8 losses, India won 40 of their 52 T20Is under his leadership.
However, Surya's own batting performance over the last two years has been mainly lackluster. Since the beginning of the previous year, the seasoned batsman had only managed four half-centuries in 35 T20I innings.
But because of his bad batting form, the BCCI stripped him of his captaincy and gave Shreyas Iyer the reins beginning with the T20I series in England & Ireland.
"It is the right time. Though it's unfortunate for Surya, given his incredible captaincy record, the bad batting form lasted for too long. And the IPL also didn't augur any confidence in the selectors. Two years also gives Gambhir and Iyer time to work their chinks out and iron out any issues before the big events in two years. Hopefully, Indian cricket doesn't go crazy and change captains before that,” Uthappa said on the CommBox TV YouTube channel.
"It didn't look like Surya was out of form but just out of runs. That's the best time to actually take a break and come back after a month or a few months. But two years is a good runway he has before being dropped. Unfortunately, age isn't on his side as well,” he added.
Surya continued his poor batting form in IPL 2026, averaging a dismal 20.76 in 13 matches with only two half-centuries.
Because of their collaboration at the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), Robin Uthappa thinks the head coach-captain relationship between Gautam Gambhir and new T20I captain Shreyas Iyer will be successful. With Gambhir serving as the team mentor, Iyer guided KKR to one of the most successful IPL 2024 title runs.
"It will be a fascinating combination. But the dynamic works because they've worked together successfully with KKR," said Uthappa.
The Iyer and Gambhir era will begin in Ireland, where the two T20Is will be played on June 26 and 28.
