Chennai: India coach Rahul Dravid brushed aside the concerns around the recent form of Suryakumar Yadav in the ongoing ODI series against Australia, saying that the Mumbai batter is learning the 50-over game a little bit.
Surya has got two golden ducks against sizzling Mitchell Starc in the first two ODIs against Australia as Shreyas Iyer’s replacement at the crucial No.4 position so far in the series.
“Obviously, it’s unfortunate for Shreyas to get injured — he’s one of those guys we think will bat for us at No.4 and he has been given a lot of time in that position. Not really concerned so much about Suryakumar. You have got two first-ballers against two pretty good balls,” Dravid said in the pre-match presser of the series decider.
Dravid further added that the middle-order batter has played a lot of T20 cricket but hasn’t had the chance to play in ODI tournaments.
Since making his List A and T20 debuts, the Mumbai batter has played nearly double the number of games in the shortest format — 242 compared to 124 List A games, with 123 of them at high-octane in the IPL.
Even at the international level, Suryakumar has played more than twice the number of T20Is (48) than ODIs (22).
“One of the things about Surya is he is also learning the 50-over game a little bit. The T20 game is slightly different. Even though he hadn’t played for India for a long time, in T20 cricket, he played nearly ten years of IPL, and a lot of IPL cricket, which is a tournament that is like international cricket,” Dravid said.
“He has played a lot of high-pressure T20 games but in one-day cricket, there’s no equivalent tournament in domestic cricket, you’ll have to play Vijay Hazare Trophy and all that.
“Even though he has played a lot of T20 cricket, I think he has not played a lot of one-day cricket. We just need to give him some time and be patient with him. We certainly see the upside of him doing well, which is very good for the side,” he added.
IANS