Suryakumar Yadav has steadily become one of the lynchpins in the Indian batting line-up after a remarkable rise in international cricket. The stylish batter who has often been labelled as India’s Mr. 360, had to wait for as many as 11 years to don India’s jersey for the first time since making his first-class debut in 2010.
Suryakumar had to wait long for his dream India debut despite performing consistently in the domestic circuit and the IPL for a few years. However, his big break came in 2021 when the stylish right-hander managed to earn his maiden call-up after a brilliant IPL season with Mumbai Indians.
Suryakumar revealed his wife Devisha Shetty played a key role in changing his career graph as she helped him in ironing out his weaknesses and adapt a more productive diet and training regime which worked wonders for the star cricketer. She pushed him to work smarter not harder after all the work that he had already put in without getting closer to his India debut.
“After 2017-18 me and my wife, Devisha, sat down and decided, let’s do some smart work from here on. You have worked hard, you have come this far, let’s do something else and we will see what happens,” Suryakumar told ESPNCricinfo’s Cricket Monthly.
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The India batter changed his diet, worked on his offside game, and trained differently before his body started feeling different in the year 2020. He had an impressive IPL season for Mumbai Indians in 2020 and continued his consistent run the next year to eventually her his maiden India call-up in the T20I series against England.
“I started dieting. Did a few things which really helped me in the 2018 domestic season and 2019. And going forward, in 2020 my body was completely different,” said the Indian batter.
“It took time. It took around a year and a half for me to realise what my body is used to – what will help me, how can I move forward,” he added.
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Suryakumar revealed he was practicing all the time before but was not getting the desired results. However, changes in his diet, overall nutrition, and his training regime helped him in sparking a turnaround as he made it to the national team and there has been no looking back ever since.
“Eventually we both realised, yes, we are moving in the right direction. Then everything was on autopilot. I knew what I had to do, how I had to train, how much practice I had to do,” he said.
“Before that I was just practising, practising, getting a little frustrated sometimes. And I felt there was no quality in that – there was a lot of quantity. But after 2018 there was a lot of quality in my training, diet, net sessions and everything, which helped me really well.
“And then it was a complete build-up, runs coming in all formats, in the IPL as well. So consistency came with that and finally I broke the door,” Suryakumar added.
The 32-year-old is currently one of the mainstays in the Indian batting line-up in white-ball cricket and is part of the T20 World Cup 2022 squad. A lot will depend on how he performs with the bat throughout the tournament if India are to realise their dream of winning the trophy in Australia this year.
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