India's star batter Suryakumar Yadav has opened up on his mantra to earn the national call-up for India. Yadav, who is also referred to as India's 360 degrees revealed that it was in 2018 when he tweaked his training a bit and focused on smart work rather than hard work.
While speaking to ESPN Cricinfo's Cricket monthly, the 32-ear-old Yadav stated, "After 2017-18 me and my wife, Devisha, sat down and decided, let's do some smart work from here on. You have worked hard, you have come this far, let's do something else and we will see what happens."
Suryakumar Yadav played in the domestic circuit and IPL but was a little far from a national call-up earlier. He added that he trained differently and started playing more toward the off-side. "I started training in a different way. After 2018 I realised what I needed to work on in my game. I started batting more towards the off side. I started dieting. Did a few things which really helped me in the 2018 domestic season and 2019. And going forward, in 2020 my body was completely different," Yadav added.
"I started dieting. Did a few things which really helped me in the 2018 domestic season and 2019. And going forward, in 2020 my body was completely different," Yadav said.
He added that he later realised he is moving in the right direction and soon everything went on autopilot mode.
"I knew what I had to do, how I had to train, how much practice I had to do," he said. "Before that, I was just practicing, practicing, getting a little frustrated sometimes. And I felt there was no quality in that - there was a lot of quantity. But after 2018 there was a lot of quality in my training, diet, net sessions, and everything, which helped me really well."
Suryakumar Yadav had a very good year in 2020 in the IPL, however, he could not earn a national call that year in a T20I series against Australia. "It was a little difficult. I mean all the team-mates from different countries (during the IPL) were telling me, your opportunity has come, you are doing so well," he said.
"And I was also very excited at that time, and I imagined things: yes, I'll do this, I'll do that when I play for India. But then, when it didn't come, obviously I was disappointed," Yadav said
But then came 2021, when Yadav finally got a call for India. He played his first international match in a T20I against England on 18th March 2021. Yadav scored a brilliant 57 and since then his impact has only grown. In 33 T20I innings that he has played, Yadav has scored 1060 runs at an average of 37.85 and a staggering strike rate of 176.37.
Yadav, who is known for hitting balls all around the park credited his school days to that ability. "I used to play a lot of rubber-ball cricket during my school days. We used to play on hard cement tracks. When you are playing with the rubber ball on hard cement, it's easy for you to scoop, pull, play an uppercut, then play a slice over point. All these strokes which you see me play, square of the wicket and behind square, have come from that," Yadav stated.
(Inputs from PTI)
