New Delhi: BCCI chief selector Ajit Agarkar made an honest admission about Suryakumar Yadav’s omission from the ODI team despite appointing him as the new T20I captain. The BCCI made some bold decisions ahead of the Sri Lanka tour by naming Surya the new T20I captain over Hardik Pandya, but he failed to make the cut for the ODI team. Surya has not featured in ODIs for since the 2023 World Cup final, where India suffered a defeat against Australia in Ahmedabad. The flamboyant batter had an underwhelming tournament with the bat; he faced flak for his poor shot selection in the final, and following that, several questions were raised over his ODI batting credentials.
Meanwhile, Agarkar made it clear that Surya is not in India’s ODI scheme of things, and he is currently seen as only a T20I player.
The former India pacer in fact said that Surya’s name was not even discussed for the ODI squad as the team management is content with Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant in the middle-order.
“No, we haven’t discussed Surya (for ODIs) at this point. Shreyas (Iyer) is back, KL (Rahul) is back. They have had great World Cups (ODI). Rishabh (Pant) is back as well. So there is some real quality through that middle order. So at this point Surya is a T20I player,” Agarkar told in India’s pre-departure press conference.
Surya’s ODI numbers are a complete contrast to T20Is. He has played 37 ODIs for India, scoring 773 runs at an underwhelming average of 25.76.
The BCCI chief selector asserted that Surya was the deserving candidate for the T20I captaincy, and the BCCI got good feedback about him from the dressing room before elevating him to the big role.
“Why Surya was made captain? Because he is one of the deserving candidates. The one we know has been around the dressing room over the last one year, you get feedback from the dressing room a lot. He has got a good cricketing brain and he is still one of the best T20 batters in the world,” Agarkar said during the joint press conference.
Suryakumar has already arrived in Sri Lanka with the Indian team, where they will play three T20 Internationals and as many ODIs against the hosts starting July 27. It will also mark the start of a new era, with Gautam Gambhir starting his tenure as the new head coach of the team.
