Within five years of his international career, Suryakumar Yadav went from making his T20I debut to captaining India to T20 World Cup glory on home turf. It has been a tale of two contrasting careers for Yadav – before he donned the captain’s hat, he was the best and highest-ranked T20I batter in world cricket. After taking over, his form has been patchy – but the results speak for themselves.
Yadav’s lack of runs in recent months but ability to rattle off wins makes his tenure a difficult one to truly estimate – was India’s squad simply so good that neither his batting nor his captaincy mattered too much?
This, according to Ricky Ponting, would be an unfair view of a very tricky role in international cricket. Arguably the best and definitely most successful captain in the history of cricket, Ponting was full of praise for how Yadav led the team through the 18-month World Cup cycle.
‘Captaincy can become difficult’
“It’s about a lot more about what they do off the field, the things that people don’t see and how they interact with their players,” explained Ponting while speaking on the ICC Review. “He didn’t have a great time himself as a player, but still he’s standing at the end holding up a World Cup trophy.”
It wasn’t a horror World Cup for SKY, as he scored 242 runs across the campaign – but he was far from his fluent, creative best, and finished the tournament with a golden duck in the final. He certainly wasn’t the gamechanger that he has been in the past, and Ponting commended him for being able to make a fist of his leadership role when struggling with his own runs.
“I know as a former captain, when you’re not batting at your absolute best, captaincy can become really difficult. And when you are batting well, captaincy can become really easy,” said Ponting. Despite the captaincy being a little tricky in this way for Yadav, he came through with flying colours.
The key elements of SKY’s captaincy pedigree
The main sign of good leadership, according to Ponting, was Yadav’s man-management and ability to create an environment that allowed players liek Abhishek Sharma and Sanju Samson to thrive late in the tournament after early disappointments.
“It would have been really interesting to see how Surya has interacted with Abhishek (Sharam) and Sanju (Samson) over the last few weeks,” said Ponting. “That’s where the real stories will come out on true leadership.”
While managing India’s incredible talent with names like Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya isn’t the most complicated job in the world, Ponting expressed that it was moves like bringing in players like Samson and Ishan Kishan, or getting the best out of Shivam Dube, that held the real value for this Indian team.
“You don’t have to worry about the staples, it’s more the guys on the fringe and the younger guys going up and down with their emotions and battling with their form, the ones you have to spend the most time with,” explained Ponting.
Suryakumar will next be attempting to rediscover some of his batting form by continuing his hot-streak in the IPL, where he won the MVP award in 2025. With the leadership for Mumbai Indians off his shoulders, his batting could appear close to its best again.
