IND vs SA, ODI World Cup 2023: Good to see Suryakumar Yadav realizing his potential, says Rahul Dravid

Suryakumar Yadav showed a different side while batting in ODIs with a gritty 49 against England in the World Cup.

Suryakumar Yadav during India’s training session at Eden Gardens. (Image: PTI)

Calcutta: India coach Rahul Dravid was happy to see Suryakumar Yadav show a different side to his batting in the ongoing ODI World Cup 2023 with a gritty 49 on a tough track against England. India, who are unbeaten in the tournament so far and are the first team to reach the semi-finals, will play South Africa at the Eden Gardens on Sunday. The Proteas also reached the last four after New Zealand lost to Pakistan via the DLS method on Saturday.

Unlike T20Is, Suryakumar’s data in ODIs is not satisfactory. But before ODI World Cup 2023, the No. 1 batsman in the shortest format found some form against Australia in the ODI series with two fifties. With India likely to go with the same playing XI, Dravid had high praise for SKY.

“You have to keep evolving. You have to keep getting better. And the more situations he (Surya) gets into and how he comes out of it, like he did really well against England, the better he will manage,” Dravid said about ‘Mr 360’.

What has impressed Dravid the most is where Surya has improved, and he doesn’t just want to play his T20 game. “Yes, I mean there are just terms when it comes to the areas he scores in T20 cricket and how fast he has to go in T20 cricket. He’s clearly been exceptional at that.

‘And it’s good to see that in one-day cricket he also realizes that sometimes you can give yourself a little more time to get used to it. And then you know how dangerous he can be in death.’
Nearly a decade of high-quality domestic cricket and 82 first-class matches have really helped Surya, Dravid believes.

“I think he has that experience because he has played so much domestic cricket. It’s been around for ten years. So I think we also largely depend on his experience to be able to assess a situation very well.

“Like against England, if we have wickets he should probably play a slightly different kind of role for a while and then try to go hard at the end.” Surya and Jadeja are two players who are expected to be the X-factors at the backend in Hardik Pandya’s absence.

“It’s nice to have that experience of people like him and Jadeja on the back end, just to be able to read the situation and play based on the situation. And that is very important in one-day cricket.

“T20 cricket, you know, sometimes you just have to play one way. In a day, sometimes in a lower order than you can, you have to be smart enough to read a game and a situation.