T20 World Cup: Surya drags India out of darkness

“I’m not out of form, I’m just out of runs.”

This is the sentence, words arranged in this exact order, that Suryakumar Yadav repeated like a mantra on different platforms, be it in press conferences, presentation ceremonies or, quite likely, even to himself for a little over a year, which would be right through his momentum-less stint as captain of India’s T20I side.

In 2025, quite easily the worst year of Surya’s career, he batted 22 times for India, didn’t once cross fifty, and averaged in the low teens. This repeated and unending failure with the bat, especially when every other Indian batter around him was scoring hundreds and big runs for the fun of it, could not have been easy to come to terms to – especially with the heightened scrutiny in this day and age.

But even if he was alone, Surya believed. In his ability, and that line, quoting it on loop everywhere a microphone was thrust in front of him. So much so that when it really mattered, in India’s opening game of the T20 World Cup – at his hometown of Mumbai, no less – Surya found consolidated his form with big runs when the big-hitting batters all around him showed neither, collapsing like a pack of cards against minnows USA, a team studded with more than a few former Mumbaikars in their lineup, boys and men Surya had played with right through his formative years. And they were really punching above their weight, at one point even threatening an unimaginable upset against a team that are the hosts, defending champions and the best T20I country in the world, all rolled into one.

After having been put into bat on a usually high-scoring Wankhede pitch, India collapsed from 45/1 to 46/4 in the space of one over, the sixth of the innings, bowled by USA pacer Shadley van Schalkwyk, who employed the short and slow ball to sticky perfection. And just like that, with Surya watching on from a score of 1 from the non-striker’s end, India’s venerated top-order of Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Tilak Varma and Shivam Dube was wiped out – the latter two wickets even leaving van Schalkwyk on a hattrick. There was disbelief on the face of the spectators in Mumbai, but not Surya’s.

But his cautious rearguard nearly ended before it began, on a score of 15, what with an easy caught and bowled chance being spilled by Shubham Ranjane in his follow through off the last ball of the 10^th over. Surya’s wicket at that point would have been calamitous, given that soon after, Rinku Singh and Hardik Pandya holed out in successive overs (the 12^th and the 13^th) to leave the hosts reeling at 77/6.

But this is when, against all odds, Surya came to the fore with quite easily his best knock in his newish role as the country’s captain. The wicket on Saturday was sticky, but the man known as SKY had local knowledge, so he began playing his big shots square of the wicket – on either side of the field. Leg spinner Mohammad Mohsin was swept for four in one over, while left-arm spinner Harmeet Singh was cut to the boundary in the next. The strategy didn’t change even when left-arm seamer Saurabh Netravalkar returned to the attack, but the ferocity of Surya’s shots did. He helicoptered him towards square leg for a one-bounce boundary, followed by a helicopter six over the same area. India now had a three-figure team-score, in the 16^th over.

Now came the terrific shots behind square, a full toss by Ranjane making him fall over for the first time in the 18^th over as the ball sped wide of fine leg to bring up the captain’s fifty. He celebrated it for long with his adoring Mumbai fans, for both parties knew the pressure under which the landmark was achieved was, at times, unbearable. But Surya wasn’t done. Batting on 63 when the final over began, he took Netravalkar to the cleaners, with a cut four through the off side, a six over fine leg, another six over mid-off this time, followed by yet another lofted sweep to the fine leg fence to drag India to a respectable score of 161 runs.

Surya had accounted for 84 of those runs. The next best score in the Indian ranks was 20 (Kishan). So, when India ended up winning by a margin of just 29 runs, no one playing or watching this match was under any false illusions of who had won India the game. Captain Surya had done so single-handedly, and now he has form, runs and most importantly, the country’s respect.

Brief scores: India 161/9 (Suryakumar Yadav 84*, Shadley van Schalkwyk 4/25) beat USA 132/8 (Shubham Ranjane 37, Mohammed Siraj 3/29) by 29 runs