Suryakumar Yadav’s 2025 numbers bear a sorry look, but there is no reason to be anxious – yet.
In 2025, Surya has struck at 126 in T20Is while averaging 14.35. These are ordinary numbers for any batter from a major side, but for Surya, this seems a near-unbelievable fall. After all, this is someone whose numbers read 168 and 40.79 until the end of 2024. Go back to another year, and they read 172 and 45.55 until the end of 2023. This seems like a bad year by any definition.
However, he has also got runs this year – in the IPL. There, he made 717 runs (his most in a season) at 168 (second-best) and 65.18 (best). In other words, his worst year in T20Is has coincided with his best in the IPL.
This unusual year raises a question. While Surya’s numbers have taken a hit in 2025, do they look worse than they should have? Have India been scoring slower than they had been since the last year?
In 2022, his best year (or perhaps anyone else’s in the history of the format), Surya struck at 187 when the other Indian batters scored at 138. He was 36 per cent quicker than them. He continued to score quickly (156 in 2023, 152 in 2024). That did not change. What changed was the scoring rate of the Indian team (143 in 2023, 151 in 2024).
By 2024, “SKY” was still scoring at a rapid rate, but now he was part of a team who were also scoring at that rate. In 2025, his strike rate dropped to 126, but his teammates, to 145. His drop now seems less steep, but it is still reasonably steep.
This looks bad – until one takes into account the development that took place over this phase. If 2024 marked the early days of Abhishek Sharma in T20Is, 2025 firmly established him in the format into a batter of unprecedented class.
That Abhishek has scored at 195 this year is well known. What it does not tell is that he has scored 790 of India’s 2,785 runs in 2025 – a whopping 28 per cent. That proportion is large enough to pull up a team’s batting strike rate single-handedly.
So, have the other Indian batters – barring Abhishek – been scoring quicker than Surya? Yes, but only marginally.
It does not look as bad this time. While Surya has been scoring at a slower rate, his teammates have been doing the same – largely because India’s matches have been lower-scoring than in 2024. Abhishek has been a significant factor behind India consistently outscoring the oppositions and holding a 14-3 record over the course of the year.
Surya is himself aware of how heavily India have relied on Abhishek in 2025. “We can’t rely on Abhishek all the time: the way he’s been batting, he might have an off day,” he told after the second T20I against South Africa.
Let us look at the same metrics over the course of the year, series by series, for their four outings in 2025.
There is obviously a problem here: the South Africa series is a small sample of two games where Surya has faced only 12 balls. But then, the entire premise of this piece is a small sample.
In 2025, Surya has faced a mere 159 balls. Exclude the Australia tour (where one saw glimpses of the familiar Surya), and that drops to 110 balls (6.5 per cent of his T20I career).
It is true that his numbers have taken a hit. But whether he has lost form depends on whether one wants to pass a judgement based on a sample size that small.
What about the batting average?
“I feel I am not out of form”
Naturally, the question came up at a press conference during this year’s Asia Cup. “I feel I am not out of form, I feel I am out of runs,” he explained. “I believe more in what I am doing in the nets and my preparation. So in matches, things are on autopilot.”
It is important to understand these words. During its inception, T20 borrowed the cricketers and the Laws from the longer formats. It also borrowed its notions and ideas, one of which is runs being a representation of form.
There is no thing as “bad” runs in Test cricket. But in T20, there are – unless the runs are scored at a rapid rate. Barring hand-picked examples, a slow, long innings usually harms T20 teams more than early dismissals. The sub-15 average in 2025 can partly be attributed to trying to score at a quicker pace.
In fact, that has been a salient feature of T20 cricket. Batters who adapt a high-risk approach can have a streak of low scores. And since most innings get quicker as they progress, the strike rate drops as well.
Does this mean there is no reason for concern once the runs dry up? Of course there is, but it is perhaps a tad premature to base that judgement on a slab of 110 balls (we are leaving out the Australia tour).
The Indian team does have its problems, as Sarah Waris pointed out in these pages. They will be helped by Surya’s return to his best: it is something he has done in the past.
