After receiving Player of the Series in India’s 4-1 victory over New Zealand, Suryakumar Yadav noted that although he had a run drought across 23 innings, when the wheels of fortune turned, it was once again showering runs, something he has demonstrated over the last year.
In the five-match series against New Zealand, Suryakumar amassed 242 runs at a strike rate near 200, including three fifty-plus innings.
“It feels really good. It’s been a long year and a long wait for moments like this. I’ve always dreamed about when this time would come,” PTI quoted the beaming skipper, who ended as the top scorer in the series, as saying.
When asked what had been on his mind over the previous year, the Mumbaikar, who is endowed with a mischievous streak, responded: “I think the ‘Sky’ wasn’t blue for a year. But that’s life. It’s part of the journey. I took it in my stride, went back to the drawing board, tried to understand what was going wrong.”
SKY claimed that the time between the recently finished series and the South Africa Twenty20 Internationals helped him improve the finer elements of his game.
“After the last series, I got two or three weeks where I spent time with close friends, they told me a few important things I needed to follow. That’s a sportsperson’s life. I’ve seen so many careers, not just in cricket, where people go through these phases. I knew my time would come if I kept doing the small things right. I’m really happy with how things have turned out.”
SKY had consistently insisted that he was simply out of runs rather than out of form, and the New Zealand series proved his point.
“I just kept doing the same things I’d been doing over the last year, stuck to my routines. I knew I wasn’t out of form, just out of runs. It’s been a very good series, and going into the World Cup feeling like this is really special.”
