A three-match One-Day International series between Australia and India will begin on Friday, September 22 at the IS Bindra Stadium of the Punjab Cricket Association in Mohali. To provide them much-needed rest before the ODI World Cup 2023, several senior players, including Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Hardik Pandya, and Kuldeep Yadav, have been benched for the first two games. The squad has the chance to test their bench strength before the huge event thanks to the absence of the senior players.
Suryakumar Yadav is one of the players that is in severe need of playing time. Despite not having great ODI results, the team management has supported the 33-year-old.
Rahul Dravid, the head coach of the Indian squad, said before the opening ODI that the team supports Suryakumar because of his capacity to alter the outcome of a match and expressed the hope that he will do so in ODIs.
He is involved, and we have decided to go ahead with it with our full support. We support him because we have seen his talent and quality. Yes, we are aware that T20 cricket is the current scene, but we are also aware of the kind of impact a player like him can have. He has the power to alter a game’s outcome. It is crystal clear that we support him wholeheartedly, and hopefully he will be able to turn things around, said Rahul Dravid, according to THEWEEK.
Sanju Samson was passed over for Suryakumar Yadav in the Indian team.
Notably, Suryakumar has two fifty-scores and 537 runs in 25 ODI innings at an average of 24.40 and a strike rate of 99.81. Sanju Samson, who has had a strong ODI career, was benched in favour of the dashing hitter by the team management.
The 28-year-old has a strike rate of 104 and has 390 runs scored in 12 innings at an average of 55.71. However, because of Suryakumar’s success in T20Is, the team management put more faith in him than Samson. The Mumbai-born batsman is eager to prove why he was chosen for the ODI series against Australia.