Colombo, July 25: Former Team India Fielding Coach R Sridhar believes that Indian selectors have done a good job by appointing top order batter Suryakumar Yadav (SKY) as the new T20I skipper, after Rohit Sharma quit the format with a World Cup triumph.
Sridhar was quoted saying by a section of press that SKY will take captaincy as "fish to water". He is a natural leader, Sridhar remarked.
Surya has led India earlier. In the past, he even led other teams including Mumbai. His overall T20 captaincy record reveals that so far he has captained 24 T20 games and had won 16 of those.
SKY also captained in the age-group levels and the tour games, and was entrusted with leading the Mumbai team for the first time in 2014, when he led the team in the Vijay Hazare Trophy.
Interestingly, he did quit captaincy once, when he was assigned the role to lead Mumbai team in a Ranji season.
Of course, that was a decade ago. In 2014, SKY was named Mumbai skipper for the Ranji Trophy in the absence of veterans Zaheer Khan and Rohit Sharma. SKY was chosen ahead of Abhishek Nayar, who is now appointed as an Assistant Coach of Team India.
In that season, after leading Mumbai in just six games, SKY resigned from his role citing the side's poor performance during his tenure. Surya was also reprimanded by the Mumbai Cricket Association for using abusive language on the field and in the dressing room as captain, leading to players complaining against him.
As a fallout, SKY was replaced by Aditya Tare, who was termed a better man-manager by the MCA, for the remainder of the Ranji Trophy that year.
But that was not all. Interestingly, he was involved in a public spat with Shardul Thakur during a Ranji game against Madhya Pradesh. Mumbai manager Shrikant Tigdi in his report to the MCA, cited that incident.
Apart from that, his fist-fight with his Mumbai teammate Siddhesh Lad, when he was the captain of the Under-25 team, also drew attention. He later broke a glass wall in the MCA’s BKC facility. He was let off by MCA's vice-president Ravi Savant on both occasions then.
But in the last few years, SKY has matured a lot. Not only as a better player but even as a leader.
Besides, under Gautam Gambhir as the Head Coach of Team India, Suryakumar is expected to do well. Because he was phenomenal as a cricketer during his stint with Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), when Gambhir captained KKR.
