India’s Suryakumar Yadav has taken the cricketing world by storm with his dazzling batting in the shortest format this year.
The right-hander is the leading run-getter in T20Is this year and also occupies the No. 1 position in the ICC T20I batting rankings. Surprisingly, Surya has failed to replicate his T20I heroics in the 50-over format so far.
In the just-concluded ODI series against New Zealand, Yadav registered scores of 4, 34* and 6, which suggests that he is still finding his feet in ODIs.
However, former India head coach Ravi Shastri reckons there is nothing to worry about Suryakumar's approach in ODIs but he had a couple of suggestions for the swashbuckling batter.
"That can happen. But what he can learn is that this is two-and-a-half time the size of a T20 game. He has got that many more balls to play. He can wait that bit longer. His USP is total devastation towards the end of the innings. He has got ample time to reach 30-40 before that with a lot more number of balls. So, in his case, it's about giving himself that extra bit of time. That impact quality that is needed can wait a little bit because this game is a little bit longer. And then the conditions. At times, you might be in the best form of your life but you have got to respect the condition. This is a great game. It doesn't wait for anyone. You don't respect the conditions, sooner or later, you will come back to respect it," Shastri said exclusively on Prime Video.
Suryakumar Yadav has played 42 T20Is so far, amassing 1408 runs at an average of 44 and a strike rate of 180/97, including two hundreds and 12 half-centuries. On the other hand, he has scored 384 runs from 16 ODIs at an average of 32 and a strike rate of 100.52 with two fifties.
With the ODI World Cup approaching, Surya would be keen to cement his place in the middle-order. Shastri expects the batter to assess his ODI game and make the necessary adjustments going forward.
"It's nothing major. It's just a change in the mindset of the length of the game and the number of deliveries he has got to play. When you play in the sub-continent, normally if he goes to bat, he will be doing it at No. 5 when the score would be nice and high more often than not. And then he can make an impact straightaway. In conditions that suit his batting, the bowlers don't have much on offer so you can change it. But here, adjustment needs to be made. And he would learn from it. He is a smart cricketer. We have seen that with the way he improvises so this is not difficult for him," he added.
