Surya Kumar Yadav has been playing for India in cricket World Cups since 2021. But his most memorable contribution so far is the gem he offered before the match against South Africa, at a presser on Saturday.
When asked if India will play Sanju Samson, Surya smiled condescendingly and asked: Toh aap bol rahe ho ki Abhishek ki jagah khilaun usko? (Should I play him instead of Abhishek Sharma?)”
Then he went on to deride the questioner for suggesting that Samson could perhaps play at No 3. “Ahead of Tilak?” his smile widened.
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India went on to lose to South Africa the next day. The defeat played out like a script. A part-time off-spinner opened the bowling. India lost an opener for a duck–the fourth time in five games. Abhishek struggled like a slogger with a broom stick for a bat. And Tilak was caught behind attempting a shot that had no business being played at that moment, in that situation, against that delivery.
Surya’s smug overconfidence will be replaced by humility when India play Zimbabwe next. Tough choices will have to be made. Unless the management believes in bull-headed obduracy, the top order will have to be reshuffled. Abhishek and Tilak Verma’s slots will have to be re-evaluated. Washington Sundar’s role will have to be questioned. And Surya’s World Cup legacy will have to be scanned.
But, the biggest worry is this: who do you play ahead of Abhishek and Tilak? The problem isn’t that India has too many options. It’s that they have almost none. The bench has just one specialist batsman-a horribly inconsistent Samson, and one all-rounder-a horribly unlucky Axar Patel.
The Axar Puzzle
Start with Axar. Here is a cricketer who, in the last two years, has done everything asked of him and more. He bats with purpose and clarity, not the reckless ambition of a lower-order slogger, but the measured aggression of someone who understands match situations.
He bowls left-arm spin that asks genuine questions on slow surfaces. He fields like his livelihood depends on it. In the IPL, in bilateral series, in every audition the selectors could have possibly staged, Axar showed up, and delivered. And yet, here, at a World Cup where India’s middle order is creaking and their spin options look thin, he is on the bench. Not injured. Not out of form. Just omitted.
Even in the games where Axar has played, he has been sent out to bat low down the order. Sundar, who has been preferred over him ostensibly because of the left-handers in the opposition lineup, has not even been allowed his full quota of overs. What exactly is the logic behind the systematic dismantling of Axar’s authority and confidence?
The Spin Dilemma
A highlight of the Gautam Gambhir era is India’s shocking inability to play spin. Teams have dismantled India on Indian pitches with part-time spinners. Convinced of the chink in the Indian batting, opponents are opening the attack with spinners, and Indian batters are falling in their trap.
The deeper problem is that nobody in the management appears willing to name the weakness, let alone address it. The technical deficiency – hard hands, hard feet, the instinct to hit through the line rather than use the spin – has been visible for months. It has been flagged by opposition coaches, dissected by commentators, and demonstrated repeatedly on the field. And yet the response from the Indian camp has been a combination of selective amnesia and manufactured confidence.
This is where the Gambhir era finds itself at a crossroads. The aggressive, uncompromising identity that he has sought to build has value. But aggression without adaptability is just stubbornness in a different jersey.
The Deeper Illusion
In the run-up to the World Cup, this squad looked invincible. Perhaps it was an illusion created on the home turf. But subtle signs were already there.
In bilateral matches, Samson failed consistently. Abhishek was often getting out for first-ball ducks. Tilak was out of action, and, thus, not available for assessment.
But the fog is now clearing. The Gambhir era inherited from the Rohit-Dravid chapter – a young, aggressive, fast-scoring batting group, and doubled down on the philosophy of attack as identity. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. T20 cricket rewards aggression. But aggression is a tool, not a strategy.
India’s top order, as currently constituted, has almost no second gear. There is only more of the same, at increasing risk. Against South Africa, the partnership that India needed never materialised because nobody in the top six is presently equipped to build it. They are all accelerators. There is no engine.
The Kohli Cushion
In the Rohit-Dravid era, the team had a plan B. It was called Virat Kohli. This is not nostalgia. It is documented history.
Kohli, at his best in T20 internationals, was the rare batter who could be the anchor who absorbed the new ball and the accelerator who dismantled the death bowling. He could walk in at the fall of an early wicket and not play a false shot for three overs while the innings stabilised around him. Then, when the platform was set, he could shift.
Rohit Sharma, for all his genius, was never the anchor in T20s he was the destroyer. But the team could afford that because Kohli was behind him, ready to construct what Rohit’s departure threatened to demolish. That balance is no longer there.
Nobody in this Indian squad can rebuild. Not reliably. Not under pressure. Not when the opposition has a plan and the conditions favour patience over aggression.
At the same venue, in the 2024 World Cup, India were in a similar position against the same opponents. Two batters had rescued them that evening. On Sunday, both were missing.
The journalist who asked about Samson was not being impertinent. He was doing his job. He saw that this team’s top order is fragile, its bench is thin, and its margin for error is razor-thin.
He deserved a straight answer. He may yet have the last laugh.
Sandipan Sharma, our guest author, likes to write on cricket, cinema, music and politics. He believes they are interconnected.
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