'It has been very difficult' - Suryakumar on losing T20I captaincy and his place in Indian team

Suryakumar Yadav has called the phase after losing the India T20I captaincy "very difficult" but said he has found ways to deal with it. Suryakumar led India to their second straight T20 World Cup victory, at home in March, but he lost the captaincy and his place in the side in India's next assignment after the IPL, when Shreyas Iyer was named skipper.

"Post the T20 World Cup, it has been a little difficult," Suryakumar said at an MCA event in Mumbai. "I don't want to run away from the fact… if you're not honest with yourself, it's very difficult to lead a happy life. To be very honest, it has been very difficult but then at the same time, during IPL I was blessed with a baby girl in May. So the focus shifted completely towards her. So the last few months since she was born have been very beautiful."

Suryakumar, 36, has not played any top-flight cricket since the IPL, where his team Mumbai Indians finished second from the bottom. He featured in the Mumbai T20 League in June and recently in club cricket in Mumbai but was also left out of Mumbai's Ranji Trophy squad because of a lack of preparation for red-ball games.

Suryakumar's next assignment will be the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, where he has been named the Mumbai captain. The tournament starts on November 14 and Mumbai will play all their games in Kolkata. Suryakumar said he was trying to find the same "love and passion" that had started his dream of representing Mumbai as a teenager.

"The first two months after the IPL were difficult but then I thought, why not think about how I was before - how I started my cricket, when I used to think I wanted to play age-group cricket for Mumbai, I wanted to play first-class cricket for Mumbai," he said. "So all these things I chatted with my wife, and she said the same thing: you need to bring back that love and passion for the game, what you had when you were a 15-year-old kid who wanted to represent Mumbai in age-group cricket.

"So that's what I started talking about and the same thing I'm following right now: what I did 10-15 years ago - training again, following the same passion, same love for this game and everything is back to normal. When you start thinking about it, and you're focused on playing the sport, you want to do well for your team and your family; things change completely. And that's what I'm doing right now. The main goal is what I used to think before - to win the championship for Mumbai."