New Delhi, Oct 26: Tired of waiting for the elusive India call-up, a frustrated Suryakumar Yadav switched from hard work to smart work, tweaking certain aspects of his game to get his much-anticipated breakthrough.
The 32-year-old decided to change his training, began dieting and batting more towards the off-side to be more effective.
“After 2017-18 me and my wife, Devisha, sat down and decided, let’s do some smart work from here on. You have worked hard, you have come this far, let’s do something else and we will see what happens,” Suryakumar told ESPNCricinfo’s Cricket Monthly.
“I started training in a different way. After 2018 I realised what I needed to work on in my game. I batted more towards the off side.
“I started dieting. Did a few things which really helped me in the 2018 domestic season and 2019. And going forward, in 2020 my body was completely different.” Suryakumar made his debut in international cricket in a T20 match against England in March 2021.
Suryakumar felt that he had been practising mindlessly before and getting frustrated, but after shifting to”quality” training he became more consistent.
“It took time. It took around a year and a half for me to realise what my body is used to – what will help me, how can I move forward.
“Eventually we both realised, yes, we are moving in the right direction. Then everything was on autopilot. I knew what I had to do, how I had to train, how much practice I had to do,” he said.
“Before that I was just practising, practising, getting a little frustrated sometimes. And I felt there was no quality in that – there was a lot of quantity. But after 2018 there was a lot of quality in my training, diet, net sessions and everything, which helped me really well.
“And then it was a complete build-up, runs coming in all formats, in the IPL as well. So consistency came with that and finally I broke the door.” In 2020, Suryakumar was left out of India’s T20 squad for the Australia tour. (PTI)
