Suryakumar Yadav reveals reason behind playing six batters in 4th T20I vs New Zealand, speaks on 50-run defeat
Suryakumar Yadav said India intentionally played six batters in the 4th T20I to test World Cup combinations and bowling depth. He also admitted the lack of partnerships hurt the chase as India suffered a 50-run defeat to New Zealand.
India suffered a hammering 50-run defeat in the fourth T20I against New Zealand at the ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam. Ishan Kishan, who picked up a niggle in the third T20I of the series, was replaced by Arshdeep Singh, as the team management wanted to play an additional bowler for the match. However, playing an extra pacer didn’t quite help the host as the BlackCaps posted 215 runs on the board in the first innings.
India lost wickets at regular intervals in the second innings. Abhishek Sharma departed for a duck and that caused a problem, as he is usually the one who is known for setting the tone of the match. Batting at three, Suryakumar Yadav too failed to get going. Rinku Singh and Shivam Dube were the stars with the bat, contributing 39 and 65, respectively but failed to help India get closer to the target.
After the end of the game, captain Suryakumar reflected that playing just six batters was a cautious decision. He explained that the goal was to test the batting unit and play only the players who are picked for the T20 World Cup 2026.
“I feel we purposely played six batters today. We wanted to have five perfect bowlers and wanted to challenge ourselves. Like for example, if we're chasing 200 or 180, and we wanted to see if we were two down or three down, how does it look? But then it's fine at the end of the day. And we wanted to play all the players who are part of the World Cup squad. Otherwise, we would have played other ones,” Suryakumar said in the post-match presentation.
SKY analyses the defeat
The captain also noted that the team could have got the job done had any of the batters stuck with Dube, who went berserk in the middle. The Mumbai batter highlighted that the dew made things easy for the team, but they failed to capitalise.
“With the heavy dew, I think one or two partnerships here and there, like the way Dube batted, one batter with him would have made a lot of difference at the end of the game. I think 50 runs, we lost by 50 runs. But it's okay. As I said, one or two partnerships like this in a run-chase like this might make a difference,” Suryakumar said.