IND vs SA: Suryakumar, Gills poor run a cause of concern for India

The last thing a team needs is to fret over its skipper and vice-captain’s waning returns. Suryakumar Yadav and Shubman Gill’s lack of runs has put India in that predicament.

The 35-year-old has just 201 T20I runs in 2025 at an average of 14.35. The 126.41 strike rate after 17 innings in the year suggests that SKY is struggling to take off like he used to.

Gill’s performance, after replacing Sanju Samson as the Men in Blue’s T20I opener, has been a let-down. The 26-year-old’s 263-run haul after 14 outings (23.9 average, 142.93 strike rate) does not do justice to the trust placed in him.

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Gill (four runs) and Suryakumar (17) have not got going in the first two T20Is against South Africa as well.

India assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate, however, “has got absolute faith” in them returning to form, adding that he wants the duo to shut out the noise and bat positively.

“We are quite far down the road now with our planning [on leadership roles] and how we have set the team up. You should back quality players and quality leaders like that. I can understand from the outside that it looks like a concern, but I have absolute faith in them coming good at the right time,” ten Doeschate said after India’s 51-run loss, its second-biggest in T20Is in terms of runs, in the second T20I at the Maharaja Yadavindra Singh Stadium on Thursday.

He feels Gill, India’s Test and ODI skipper, should not take the extra pressure of trying to justify his place in the T20I side.

“An element of his Test captaincy [in England] and how much pride he took in that performance carried over into what he wanted to do in the T20 side. So if anything, he was too caring and maybe a little bit too tight. The talks were around relinquishing that responsibility, certainly in that capacity where you feel like it is all about you, and you really need to justify your place in the team. We don’t want him to do that.”

“Surya has been batting really nicely leading into this series… we have high expectations of these players. There has been a fairly long string of form now where he hasn’t got the scores we like. But in isolation, we are certainly not worried about it.”

With eight more T20Is to go before the 2026 World Cup, how long can India afford to look at these numbers in isolation?