Suryakumar, a pioneer in search of his legacy

When he captains India in Nagpur, Suryakumar Yadav will become the 53rd man to have played 100 T20 internationals; 44 of them have done so for Full Member nations. Mark Chapman, who has played 81 for New Zealand and 19 for Hong Kong, is not one of them. Of the 44, Suryakumar will be the only one who has neither played ten Tests nor 40 ODIs. He is the most enduring T20I specialist from a Full Member nation.

This is just a small milestone in the rapidly evolving landscape of professional cricket, but it is interesting that Suryakumar becomes the first one to get there. There are many T20 specialists, a number that will keep growing, but the first one to play such a volume never set out to be one. He still goes to play first-class and List A cricket for Mumbai every chance he gets. He is 35; when he started out, being a T20 specialist wasn't even a fantasy, forget it becoming a viable career option.

It speaks to how the landscape of limited-overs cricket has changed. Since the 2023 ODI World Cup final, also the last of Suryakumar's 37 ODIs, India have played just 23 ODIs and as many as 54 T20Is. Despite playing only one format, Suryakumar is India's fourth-most-capped player in this period.

Behind this rise of T20 specialists is a possible realisation that adjusting from ODIs to T20s is not quite the same as adjusting from Tests to ODIs. That T20 is closer to being a different sport than just a different format of the sport. Suryakumar happened to work his way to a game that works in this format, youngsters are now training for it. Six of eight batters in India's regular T20I XI play only that format internationally: Sanju Samson, Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube and Rinku Singh, apart from Suryakumar.

However, this sport called T20 doesn't have a different fanbase. It results in unique challenges for those who play only T20. In Indian players' case, it gets compounded because they can't play any league other than the IPL. Suryakumar has quickly gone from comparisons with AB de Villiers to someone who hasn't scored a single international fifty in a year. Teams are bowling better at him, and the only competitive environment he gets to work his way back in is top-level cricket.

When Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli went into the 2024 T20 World Cup, they were desperate for an ICC title, but their legacy as cricketers was secure. For Suryakumar, the World Cup starting in three weeks could mean it all.

Yes, he was part of the winning side last year, and yes, he took a special catch in the last over of the final, but it seems like a distant memory given his recent struggles.

The upcoming two months will bring a touch of desperation for Suryakumar. In the wretched year that he has had with the bat, he has been getting out to full balls, something batters generally love when looking to hit. He has been saying that he knows what is going wrong, and that he has been working on it. There is a school of thought that wonders if a niggle is holding back his hitting ability. Being the captain, he can't sit out. He has to work his way back in amid the glare.

It is unlikely Suryakumar will be around for the 2028 T20 World Cup. If he doesn't win this one as the captain, he will end his career with IPL titles but no instantly memorable big trophy in T20I cricket. The next two months could be legacy-defining for a pioneer of sorts.