Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya 'Not Best Of Friends'? Report Makes Explosive 'Open Secret' Claim

Towards the end of last year, Suryakumar Yadav was attending a felicitation ceremony where he was interacting with students in the audience. One of them asked about his modest return of 218 runs in 19 T20I innings in 2025, and the then India T20 captain responded with a mix of cockiness and humour. "My 14 soldiers are covering for me... they know what will happen the day I blast." It was the response of a captain secure in the knowledge that the team was winning even if his own bat had gone silent. It was also evident that the leader in him had seemingly taken over, while the batter had receded into the background.

But in the ruthless world of professional sport, performance is the only currency that matters.

At 35 years and 265 days, Suryakumar is unlikely to add significantly to his tally of 113 T20Is and 3,272 runs for India.

That remark was one of many quotable quotes that suggested he was operating in his own bubble, seemingly oblivious to a prolonged slump. At times, his confidence appeared perilously close to self-delusion.

What made the decline particularly striking was that Suryakumar had become captain because he was an exceptional T20 batter -- one of the pioneers who helped redefine the grammar of batting in the shortest format before passing the baton to the likes of Abhishek Sharma and, later, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi.

However, once he became captain of India's T20 side, he appeared to forget that he was a batter first and a skipper second.

That statement that 14 others are covering for him sounded a trifle juvenile.

He didn't realise that a non-performing captain starts losing respect of the dressing room. If someone fails to score consistently for more than a year, he would find it extremely difficult to actually instruct his teammates to execute his plans.

So what exactly became Suryakumar's undoing as a batter? To understand this, one needs to go back to the 2023 ODI World Cup. You will find a pattern: once he hit a plateau with his T20 form, he stopped working on his game.

During a World Cup press conference, then-Indian head coach Rahul Dravid said Suryakumar needed to find areas of the ground other than the vacant region behind the square.

The 'Supla Shot' is a stroke where Suryakumar uses his supple wrists to execute a shot that is something between a flick and a short-arm pull, utilising the speed of the delivery.

The straight deliveries aimed at his body, which became his undoing in ODIs, now appear to have ended his international career in T20s as well.

In fact, when he last played the Duleep Trophy in 2024, he was even trying to hit Arshdeep Singh behind square at the onset, much to the chagrin of the national selector present there.

A left-field choice back in the day 

In 2024, when the victorious Indian team returned from the Caribbean, Hardik Pandya was slated to take over as the next captain and lead the side in Sri Lanka. However, new coach Gautam Gambhir stepped in. His thoughts aligned with chairman of selectors Ajit Agarkar, who wasn't too keen on the all-rounder after watching his performance as Mumbai Indians skipper.

Furthermore, there was a third angle to it. When a very senior star was asked for his input, his vote went to Surya. Within the inner circles of Indian cricket, it was an open secret that for the past two years, Hardik Pandya and Suryakumar Yadav have not exactly been the best of friends in the dressing room.

Out of runs but not out of form

While the Asia Cup win could have been a boon for Suryakumar, it ultimately proved to be a bane. Despite India defeating Pakistan thrice during the tournament, the animosity between the two sides reached a breaking point following the Pahalgam attacks and Operation Sindoor.

While Surya became a cult hero for a lot of Indian fans for not shaking hands with his Pakistani counterpart, Salman Ali Agha, and dedicating the victory to the Indian armed forces, there was an alternate school of thought as to why he needed to set a debatable narrative in the first place. Was it required? But then, he had the backing of his firebrand coach, Gautam Gambhir.

But what stuck out like a sore thumb was his poor form throughout the tournament.

After he had scored 72 in six innings, amid all the euphoria, a young Indian journalist rightfully asked him, "Is your form a concern?" and the nonchalance was there to be seen. "I am out of runs, not out of form," was the reply.

The reply meant that he never understood the moot problem and therefore had no inclination to address it.

Surya has been a disciple of Rohit Sharma, but there is one stark difference: while the 'Hit-Man' school of humour at press conferences was organic, in Surya's case, it seemed like he was trying his hand at stand-up comedy.

This year's T20 World Cup win is the least credited among all of India's ICC's trophies. Winning in home conditions with the most formidable team was a foregone conclusion. But Surya once again flopped as a batter, apart from one game against the USA, and the razzmatazz around the trophy triumph papered over his failure.

He spoke about his dream to play the Olympics and the 2028 T20 World Cup.

"Anyone has the right to dream, not just for LA 2028 but for Brisbane 2032 and if Ahmedabad hosts one in 2036. But only runs will take him to the next series," someone in BCCI, privy to selection developments, told PTI after the T20 World Cup.

The IPL didn't go as per plan and it all ended in a jiffy. Suryakumar came in with a bang but didn't deserve to go out with a whimper.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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