Her casual question was what motivated him to work hard for a national call-up. And now that he has won the T20 World Cup as captain, Suryakumar Yadav is unable to adequately thank his “brutally honest” wife Devisha for moulding him into the person he is today.
“If you want to play for India, how do you plan to do it?” was the straightforward question Devisha posed to Suryakumar in 2018. Eight years after that “brutally honest conversation”, India successfully defended its T20 World Cup title under Suryakumar’s leadership.
“We got married in 2016 when I was still playing for KKR. Everything was going very smooth. I was playing well, enjoying and she looked at my journey and my routines till 2018 when I joined Mumbai Indians. I think we started doing things a little differently,” Suryakumar recalled during a podcast interview with ‘PTI Videos’.
“She told me that all those who played with you in age group, a lot of them are now playing for India, what do you have in mind? I said: ‘Mujhe bhi India khelna hai (I want to play for India too)’. ‘Kaise kheloge’ (how do you plan to do it?), she asked.
“It was a nice little conversation with her, not an argument but discussion. But yes, it was a discussion about how can you take one extra step forward in your endeavour. If I want to play for India and want to win games for India, how do I do it?” the 35-year-old revealed his career-changing talk with his wife.
As a pair, Suryakumar and Devisha made some difficult life decisions after deciding to go one step farther in achieving their ultimate objective.
“We had to cut down on a lot of things — from diet, to friends circles to weekends, rest on Saturday-Sunday, Monday to Friday work schedule, so we set the ball rolling and in 2018, I had a very good IPL season (512 runs) and also domestic cricket,” he said.
“That year, I got a chance to open for Mumbai Indians and I got runs too, Come 2019 and 2020, we kept doing the same thing and I was in a different mood. She saw that he has started enjoying even more, 2020 was even better (480 runs as finisher) and then in 2021 I got picked for India,” Suryakumar added.
The captain claimed that Devisha continued to be his rock in the background.
“She has been a big influence behind the scenes in telling me honest things. If it is your partner, she will always be honest because all she would want is your growth because if you want to grow together, conversations have to be honest. At times, it has been brutal too, but then it has been good. If I am where I am today, those conversations have gone a long way.”
Devisha never entered his realm of cricket because it was outside of her purview, but she gave him advice on life outside of cricket.
“I give her 100 per cent credit because it is not that she gave me cricketing advice but she told me a lot of things related to life. What do I do? How to approach a certain situation? How do I carry myself?”
Finally, but just as importantly, she kept him grounded at home by instructing him to leave cricket at the door before entering home. He is simply Surya at home, not the superstar Suryakumar Yadav.
“She told me to not to carry cricket back home. These were all important things that I learnt. You need to stay humble, grounded irrespective of your achievements. At home, you are not Suryakumar Yadav, so be normal. After having food, keep the plate in the sink. These little things that add value to your life.”
