Suryakumar Yadav: There's never anything like all bases covered

India have now won each of the seven T20I series they have been part of since winning the 2024 T20 World Cup. They hold a 26-4 win-loss record over this period. They still have two bilateral series at home, where they will defend their crown in about three months. Surely they are favourites given their strengths, experience and current record, but their captain Suryakumar Yadav is aware you can never say all the bases are covered.

"I'm very lucky to have all these boys with different-different skills," he said after the Brisbane washout when asked if India had all bases covered. "They bring very different-different things to the table. When we chat around about the bowling, batting, and fielding… You must have seen a lot of energy on the ground. People enjoy when they go together on the ground.

"But yeah, from a batting point of view, definitely what we've been doing in the last six to eight months, I think we're sticking to that, not changing anything. These guys are doing it really well. The way they bat at the top of the order, it puts a smile on everyone's face when they're batting together.

"And also from a bowling point of view as well, people are taking responsibility. Having an experienced bowler like [Jasprit] Bumrah around in the team and everyone chatting with him, learning a lot of skills, tricks and trade of the game, I think that's a good thing. So there's good friendship building up in that as well.

"So we are trying to get there. There's never anything like all bases covered. We always learn from this game, every game we play. Yeah, till now things look good, touch wood, let's continue that."

One of the top-order batters responsible for putting said smiles on faces sat next to Suryakumar as the Player of the Series. During the course of this Australia tour, Abhishek Sharma became the quickest to 1000 T20I runs in terms of balls faced. He also played a more sedate innings when he judged the pitch to be a tricky one. India defended 167 successfully in that match.

Suryakumar was impressed with that aspect of Abhishek's game, joking that sometimes even a tiger has to turn herbivorous. "If the wicket is difficult, the quicker you adapt the better it is," Suryakumar said. "The wicket was good today so they went back to normal, scoring 50-plus in four-and-a-half overs. But it was important in the last game to read the wicket well. These two [Abhishek and opening partner Shubman Gill] did that well. At this level, you only learn from experience. The way he adapted so quickly, if in the future also if we get such a wicket in the subcontinent, it won't be something new for him.

"They communicate well. They run well. They are learning quickly. Yes, there are just 120 balls, but often you have more time than you think. Sometimes if they take four-five balls extra to figure out the conditions, they are so skilled they can cover up easily."

Abhishek credited all his success to the absolute freedom given to him by the team management, who, he said, told him he will still be in the side if he scores 15 consecutive ducks. "I knew there's gonna be extra bounce and pace, but, from a team point of view, I had a plan that I have to play the same way I've been playing. Because as an opening batter, it's very easy for you to understand your role.

"But I feel when you're playing like this, when you want to dominate the opposition, you have to have that confidence and that ability. I think the captain and coach always backed me in that. I practised really hard on this because it's not easy to come to Australia and beat them in white-ball cricket as well. So I wanted to play the same brand of cricket because we have been following that since before the Asia Cup."