There seems to be no end to India T20I Captain Suryakumar Yadav's woeful run with the bat.
He suffered another failure during Mumbai's Vijay Hazare Trophy one-day match against Punjab at the Jaipuria Vidhyalaya Ground in Jaipur, on Thursday, January 8, 2026.
Batting at No. 5, he managed just 15 from 12 balls before he was caught behind off pacer Gurnoor Brar in the 18th over. Mumbai suffered a narrow one run defeat as they were bowled out for 215. Sarfaraz Khan scored a 20-ball 62 for Mumbai. Brar and Mayank Markande took four wickets each for Punjab.
This latest failure piles on the pressure on Suryakumar going into next month's ICC T20 World Cup.
It followed a modest 24 in the previous Vijay Hazare match against Himachal Pradesh on Tuesday, making it back-to-back low scores in the 50-overs competition.
The rot runs deeper. In the recent five match T20I series against South Africa last month, he scraped together only 34 runs in four matches, with a best score of 12.
In the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, he notched up 165 runs in five matches at a strike rate of 139.83 without a single fifty.
The right-hander had a forgettable time with the bat last year and managed a paltry 218 runs in 21 T20 Internationals at a strike rate of 123.16. He last scored a half-century nearly 15 months ago, when he made 75 against Bangladesh in Hyderabad in October 2024.
It has been a sharp dip in form for India's batting mainstay in T20 cricket, who was once ranked No. 1 batter in the world.
Suryakumar in T20I Internationals: Year By Year:
| Year | Games | Inns | NO | 100s | 50s | Highest Score | Runs | Average | Strike Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 11 | 9 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 62 | 244 | 34.86 | 155.41 |
| 2022 | 31 | 31 | 6 | 2 | 9 | 117 | 1164 | 46.56 | 187.44 |
| 2023 | 18 | 17 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 112 not out | 733 | 48.87 | 155.96 |
| 2024 | 18 | 17 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 75 | 429 | 26.81 | 151.59 |
| 2025 | 21 | 19 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 47 not out | 218 | 13.63 | 123.16 |
| TOTAL | 99 | 93 | 14 | 4 | 21 | 117 | 2788 | 35.29 | 163.23 |
Batting great Ricky Ponting had an important advice for the struggling Suryakumar on how to get back among the runs.
'He's an interesting one because when I've seen him play his best, he's taken six or eight or 10 balls to get going and then just lets it all go,' Ponting said on The ICC Review.
'He plays all of his shots and backs himself and a bit like Travis Head where it almost looks like they don't ever fear getting out.'
'That's what I'd say to him. I'd be saying, think about scoring runs, don't think about getting out. Trust yourself, back yourself. You're proven to be as good as anybody in the world in the T20 format and go and prove it to everybody once again.'
The coming five-match T20I series against New Zealand will be Suryakumar's last big chance to rediscover his form ahead of the all-important T20 World Cup next month.
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