Suryakumar ready to 'knock down' selectors' door for India comeback

Mumbai captain Suryakumar Yadav is ready to "knock down the [selectors'] door" to make his India comeback after losing his place in T20I side earlier this year. Suryakumar returned to action on the opening day of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy with a half-century against Hyderabad after last playing in May in the IPL.

He smashed an unbeaten 60 off 21 with six fours and five sixes to chase down 173 with 41 balls to spare and seven wickets in hand.

"After winning the [T20] World Cup you naturally think that you will play in India's next series after the IPL," Suryakumar said after the game in Kolkata. "It's not easy to win an ICC event, especially at home, which nobody has done in the past. It felt great to win that tournament. But the selectors must have thought of something to decide [to change captaincy]. But I was definitely disappointed. If you're not sad after such things how will you turn it into passion? The same hunger that I had to play for India is back now. I want to play for the country again, so I have to knock down the [selectors'] door."

Suryakumar looked like his old self while striking at 285.71 at the Jadavpur University Campus 2nd Ground in Kolkata.

"My intent is clear - to make a comeback," he said. "When you have that target in mind to play for India, you work in one direction and bat in a disciplined way. I have worked on a lot of things from my mental game to the skills."

Suryakumar's intent was clear as soon as he went out to bat at No. 4 in the eighth over. In the next over he smoked two fours and two sixes against legspinner Ved Reddy and he followed it with three more sixes and a four off left-arm spinner Pranav Varma in the 10th over. He'd brought up a 15-ball half-century in the blink of an eye.

"It's not about giving a statement," he said. "You can see how the T20 game is changing. Till 2024 the game was slightly different and then from 2024 to 2026 we played a different brand of cricket where 190-220 was being scored and sometimes 250 as well. But now in every game you see 225, 230 and 240 being scored. The openers give a great start in the powerplay, like today we scored 75-80 [79] runs in the first six overs. But after that also you need to score at a similar pace from the seventh to 15th overs, like we saw in the Indian team. If we have to reach scores like 250-260 then I'm part of that strategy.

"Playing the high-risk-high-reward game has been my approach in the middle overs but now I'm trying to take even more risk to hit more fours and sixes. Now this format is all about fours and sixes. There are very few games where a team is 50 for 4 or 60 for 5, otherwise it's always a 200-225 kind of game. So my attempt is to dominate as much as I can in the middle overs against spinners and fast bowlers."

Suryakumar hit such long sixes in his knock that on four occasions the ball was lost. All four sixes came off the straight bat between the long-on and straight boundary, with national selector SS Das watching from the sidelines. When asked if this knock was any kind of message for the selectors, Suryakumar recounted a scene from the Hindi movie MS Dhoni: The Untold Story.

"In the movie his friends said that hit sixes where the selectors are sitting," Suryakumar joked. "That was my plan today. It would have been nice if the selectors were sitting near the straight boundary. My aim is to score runs consistently and help the team win. I'm just enjoying this entertaining format and want to play freely."

The last time Suryakumar batted in official cricket, he scored 270 runs from 13 innings for Mumbai Indians (MI) in the IPL in May. He featured in the local Mumbai T20 League in June after that and also played club cricket when the domestic season started before he was given Mumbai's T20 captaincy.

"More than captaincy this responsibility is about respect," he said. "I had not played any cricket for two-three months after the IPL after I lost my place in the Indian team; I just trained and practiced. At a time like this, it was a big thing to support me and make me the Mumbai captain. Ajinkya Naik (MCA president) could have made anyone the captain but I'll always be grateful for the the love and respect he showed me. I had started my cricket from here and it's time to pay my association back."

The match was also significant for Musheer Khan, who made his Mumbai T20 debut in the game. Batting at No. 3, Musheer hammered 51 runs off 24 balls and stitched a partnership of 65 runs in 23 balls with Suryakumar.

"I don't think he needs an external push," Suryakumar said of Musheer. "He has a Test player (Sarfaraz Khan) at home [to advise him]. Today was his T20 debut and he got the Mumbai cap, which is a matter of pride for the family. What can be better than that when you also have your idol at home."