‘I want to play for India in all three formats’ - Suryakumar Yadav hopeful of making Test comeback

Star India batter Suryakumar Yadav, who was India’s captain in the T20I series against Sri Lanka, has not given up on his Test career yet. Even though it has been more than a year since Suryakumar featured for India in the longest format, he hopes to make a red-ball comeback. 

It is worth noting that Suryakumar was not originally included in Mumbai’s squad for the pre-season Buchi Babu Invitational tournament in Tamil Nadu, but he has informed the selectors of his availability for the second half of the first-class competition  which will run until the end of August 2024. 

He will be playing under the captaincy of Sarfaraz Khan after he requested the selectors to not change the leadership. It is expected that Suryakumar could feature for Mumbai against Jammu and Kashmir in Salem, with the fixture starting August 27.

Talking about the same, Suryakumar expressed his wish to play for India across every format. He opined that competing in Buchi Babu will help him prepare for the longest format. 

"I want to play for India in all three formats, playing in Buchi Babu will give me good practice for the red-ball tournaments this season,” Suryakumar was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo. 

Recently, Suryakumar led India to a stellar 3-0 win in a T20I series against Sri Lanka. It was his first tour as a full-time captain for India. Although, he was not picked for the subsequent three-game ODI series. The BCCI’s selection committee chairman, Ajit Agarkar, stated that Suryakumar is not in India’s ODI plans currently, and that was the reason why he was dropped. 

Furthermore, with the Men in Blue not playing any T20I matches until their two-match Test series against Bangladesh in October, the 33-year-old has a decent amount of time to play red-ball matches to push for his Test comeback. The ace batter’s most recent showing in first-class cricket came in the Duleep Trophy in July 2023, with him scoring 5628 runs and averaging 43.62 with 29 fifties and 14 hundreds in 82 first-class matches.