New captain Suryakumar lays down the marker in India's big win over Sri Lanka

Suryakumar Yadav isn’t a great one for one-liners, but he had the house in splits on Friday afternoon with this gem: “The same train will continue,” he said at the press conference ahead of Saturday’s (July 27) first T20I against Sri Lanka. “Only the engine has changed. The bogies are the same.”

The bogies referenced the team India had picked for the three-match showdown. True, five key members of the XI that won the T20 World Cup final against South Africa weren’t in the mix – three have retired, two rested – but the core is otherwise unchanged, hence the ‘bogies are the same’. The change in engine is obvious; Suryakumar has replaced his Mumbai mate Rohit Sharma as the T20I captain.

Nothing has changed

In the same breath, Suryakumar quipped, “I’m going to play the way I’ve been playing so far, nothing will change.”

Nothing has changed, truth to tell.

It’s one thing to talk the talk, quite another to walk it. A little over 24 hours after he maintained that, as captain, he was in a position to ‘walk the talk’, Suryakumar was true to his word. He turned a non-hostile but blatantly pro-partisan home crowd around with his stunning strokeplay, so much so that by the end, with India racing to a 43-run victory that looked unlikely for 70 per cent of Sri Lanka’s run chase, several in the packed house broke into ‘Surya, Surya’ chants. After all, ‘Surya’ is a likeable man, with a ready smile, infectious charm and stroke-making to die for.

When he arrived at the batting crease on Saturday evening, it was on the back of a spectacular platform. Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill reiterated why they will be a huge part of the future landscape of Indian cricket by putting on 74 wonderful runs off just 36 deliveries; the iridescence of their strokeplay might have blinded others, perhaps Suryakumar too, because he edged his second delivery, from leg-spinner Wanindu Hasaranga, in the air through a vacant slip for four.

Ah, some of us nodded sagely, the pressures of captaincy evident in his tentativeness. The nerves, they must be jangling, we agreed. Captaincy isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.

But it is Suryakumar’s, make no mistake, never mind that he quit as Mumbai’s skipper back in 2014-15 under controversial circumstances. Before Saturday, he had led India in seven T20Is in an interim capacity, eking out a 5-2 record. The last of those seven matches brought him a fourth century, in Johannesburg last December, and the Player of the Match award. This time, in his first outing as captain in his own right, there was no deserved hundred but certainly another Player of the Match award, for his blazing 58 off 26.

Suryakumar shows who the boss is

Where most others might have responded to being outfoxed so early in one’s innings with a little bit of circumspection, Suryakumar decided to show who the boss was. One over after the Hasaranga edge, he smashed Dilshan Madushanka to smithereens. Madushanka is a perfectly good left-arm over pacer who gets the ball to angle across the right-hander. Conventional wisdom would dictate playing through the line, hitting on the off-side; no one had told Suryakumar that.

So he waltzed across his stumps, took the ball from outside off, and swung it over long-leg. Deep into the stands. With magnificent bat speed, with excellent hand-eye coordination, with that unique mix of wrists and a strong bottom hand. Madushanka came to a shuddering halt on his followthrough; he cast a quick glance at Suryakumar, whirled around and walked back to the top of his bowling mark with a wistful half-smile on his face. ‘You so-and-so’, he must have thought, ‘you are quite the batter, aren’t you?’

One ball later, that half-smile turned into a scowl. A slower ball, outside off, angling away, was disdainfully treated the same, though the lack of pace meant there was no six, just a four. By now, Madushanka wasn’t amused; so came the next one, another short ball which Suryakumar got inside the line of. This time, the connection wasn’t sweet, there was more elevation than distance. Asitha Fernando ran to his right at fine-leg and dived forward, getting his hands under the ball, but it was all too much for him as the white orb burst through his fingers and went for four. Madushanka? Well, fuming might be an understatement.

Did that slow Suryakumar down? Maybe for a half-second. He took on Hasaranga, spinning a wicked googly web, going down on his knee to sweep powerfully to long-leg, then through square-leg. You could see the thinking behind each stroke, the decisiveness of feet, the certainty of hand, the strength of the mind. This was Suryakumar at his destructive best. How could he not convert the disbelievers?

Riyan Parag delivers for his captain

His work with the bat over, it was time for him to showcase his leadership skills. When good balls went for four, he was quickly up to the bowler, with a pat on the back and a ‘don’t worry’ slice of encouragement. “He is a bowlers’ captain, which means the world to us,” remarked Axar Patel, whose twin strikes in the 15th over precipitated an extraordinary collapse of nine for 30 in 32 deliveries, and a 43-run defeat after Sri Lanka had got to 140 for one, needing 74 in 36 balls.

Suryakumar had reserved one final throw of the dice, a special trick up his sleeve – Riyan Parag. Sri Lanka required 56 off the last four overs, six wickets in hand. Both Mohammed Siraj and Arshdeep Singh had two overs left. Simple equation, right? Two overs for the right-handed Hyderabadi, two for the left-handed Sikh. But wait. What’s this new guy doing, marking out his run-up?

‘New guy’s first ball produced a wicket – a run out, admittedly – and he then picked up his maiden international scalp with a wicked turner. Parag screamed as if he had conquered the world. Add another unabashed, life-long fan to the Suryakumar collection.

By the end, Parag had three for five, India had their 16th win in 17 T20Is this year. The Gautam Gambhir coaching stint had begun with a comprehensive win, the Suryakumar captaincy stint had kicked off with Bridgetown reprised even if the stakes weren’t as high, the match not as much of a ‘gone case’. Suryakumar Yadav is no Rohit Sharma, but in his own way, he has laid down the marker. Fear not, he seemed to say, I’m here. Oh, he most certainly is.