'One format that I never understood': Suryakumar Yadav's surprising admission on ODI cricket

India’s T20I captain Suryakumar Yadav, who recently led Men in Blue to T20 World Cup 2026 title, candidly admitted that he never quite 'understood' the ODI format, describing it as an exceedingly 'challenging' discipline. Despite being a staple of the 2023 ODI World Cup squad, Yadav noted that the format demands a level of batting versatility that he found difficult to master. He highlighted that in ODIs, the ability to adapt to rapidly shifting match situations is often just as critical as raw talent and technical skill.

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ODI is a format where you have to bat in three different ways: Suryakumar Yadav

Suryakumar’s ODI career effectively concluded with the 2023 World Cup final, and while he recently found redemption by leading India to a 2026 T20 World Cup victory on that same Ahmedabad turf, his reflections cast a critical light on his past selection. With a modest average of 26 across 34 innings, his role as the designated finisher remained a point of contention.

“I feel that as much as I have experienced ODI cricket closely and I have seen it, it is a format where you have to bat in three different ways. Sometimes, if you go in early, if wickets fall quickly, then you have to bat like Test cricket. Then you have to bat with a good strike rate, like in a one-day, and then later at the end of the innings, you have to bat like (you do in T20 format. So, that is one format that I never understood. I tried my best to play it. But then it’s a challenging format," Suryakumar told PTI.

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'I also tried a lot to play well in ODI, but nothing happened there'

Suryakumar’s brief stint in the Test arena mirrored the inconsistencies of his ODI career. He received a surprise call-up for the 2023 Border-Gavaskar Trophy in India, yet his inclusion was short-lived as he was dropped from the side after playing just a single match. This fleeting appearance highlighted the difficulties he faced in translating his white-ball dominance into the longest format of the game. Reflecting on these experiences, Suryakumar has attributed his career trajectory to fate, acknowledging that T20 cricket naturally emerged as his most successful and comfortable format.

"…what is written in your life, you get that only. I started with red-ball cricket itself, played Ranji Trophy for 10-12 years. I played a lot of red-ball cricket in Bombay because if you grow up in Bombay, you start with red ball itself, so everything is around red ball. But gradually, when we started playing white ball cricket, the inclination shifted a bit towards that. And after that, I came to this format (T20). I also tried a lot in One-Day cricket to play well in it, but nothing happened there. T20 mein jaisa chal raha tha, usme apna haath set ho gaya hai, aisa bol sakte hain" (The way T20 was working out for me, I had become good at it; you can say that)," he added.