Suryakumar Yadav's hopes for making a return to India's Test team have hit a roadblock as the right-handed batter has suffered an injury while fielding in Mumbai's Buchi Babu Invitational Tournament match against Tamil Nadu Cricket Association XI in Coimbatore.
The match didn't turn out to be memorable for Mumbai either as they got hammered by 286 runs and Tamil Nadu eased into the semifinals.
The upcoming Duleep Trophy is a massive tournament for Suryakumar who has already revealed his desire to represent India in the red-ball format. Notably, India's T20I captain has played only one Test match in his career and it came against Australia during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in February 2023.
Suryakumar had made his intentions fairly clear before the start of the Buchi Babu tournament that he wanted to make his way back into the Test side on the back of a few impressive performances.
"What is in my power right now is to play the Buchi Babu tournament, go on to play the Duleep Trophy and then see what happens," he told reporters before the game in Coimbatore. "But yes, I'm really looking forward. There are ten Test matches lined up and I'm obviously excited for some red-ball fun."
Suryakumar has played 82 first-class matches in his career thus far and accumulated 5628 runs at an average of 43.62. The Mumbai batter has hit 14 centuries and 29 fifties in his first-class career.
If Suryakumar fails to recover on time then it will deplete Team C's strength as they have already lost the services of tearaway pacer Umran Malik due to illness.
Team C for Duleep Trophy:
Ruturaj Gaikwad (C), Sai Sudharsan, Rajat Patidar, Abishek Porel (WK), Suryakumar Yadav, B Indrajith, Hrithik Shokeen, Manav Suthar, Umran Malik, Vyshak Vijaykumar, Anshul Khamboj, Himanshu Chauhan, Mayank Markande, Aryan Juyal (WK), Sandeep Warrier.
