'There's no IPL for One-day Cricket, He's Learning': Rahul Dravid Defends Suryakumar Yadav After Yet Another Low Score

It’s been 17 innings now that Suryakumar Yadav has gone without scoring a half-century in ODIs. A home series against West Indies in February last year was the last time he scored a fifty and has found himself struggling ever since.

Interestingly, after that ODI series, Suryakumar has batted 37 times in T20Is for India and scored three centuries alongside nine fifties in them.

Clearly, he’s not out of form but it’s clear: Suryakumar hasn’t managed to workout how to manage his innings in one-day cricket.

The 32-year-old’s List A  record is decent – 3330 runs at 33.97 at a strike-rate of 103.64. So why is that he’s been so successful in T20Is but struggles in one-day format?

India head coach Rahul Dravid thinks that unlike T20, Suryakumar hasn’t played enough ‘competitive matches’ when it comes to one-day format and hence he’s still learning.

“I think Surya is a really good player, there’s no doubt about it,” Dravid said. “His performances have shown that specially in T20 cricket, even in domestic white-ball cricket, he has some very good performances.”

In the ongoing ODI series in the Caribbean, Suryakumar has gotten two chances to bat quite early in the innings. On both the occasions, he started well but failed to convert the innings into something significant.

“Even he (Suryakumar) would be the first one to admit that his ODI numbers probably haven’t been up to his high standards that he has set in T20. He’ probably learning one-day cricket. He has played a lot of IPL, lot of competitive T20 cricket before India debut but in terms of one-day cricket, he probably hasn’t  that much – there’s no IPL in one-day cricket. So he’s learning, figuring out how to bat through those middle overs,” Dravid said.

Dravid hinted that the team management will be giving him a long rope despite his struggles.

“He’s talented, a really good player. So we are giving him as many opportunities as we can. It’s really up to him now to use those opportunities. But yeah, in the kind of setup we are, we like to give as many chances as we can,” Dravid said.