IND vs PAK: Sanjay Bangar Speaks On Suryakumar Yadav's Inclusion In ODI WC 2023 Squad, Says 'India Shouldn’t Play Suryakumar Yadav Just To Get Him Game Time'

Former India batting coach, Sanjay Bangar opened up on Suryakumar Yadav’s inclusion in the ODI World Cup 2023 squad of India and asked the team management not to add him to the playing eleven just for the sake of giving him game time.

In the ODI format, Suryakumar Yadav’s numbers are not good and the player himself accepted it. However, Suryakumar played 26 matches in the 50-over format and scored 511 runs with a strike rate of 101.39.

On Tuesday (September 5th), just 30 days before the start of the ODI World Cup 2023 in India, Ajit Agarkar and Rohit Sharma held a press conference where the squad was revealed.

If the team has an opening where he can play, he definitely should: Sanjay Bangar on Suryakumar Yadav

While speaking to Star Sports, Sanjay Bangar spoke on Suryakumar Yadav and said that the player should play if there is an opening in the team.

Bangar added that the team coach and skipper, Rahul Dravid and Rohit Sharma will be doing the same thing of not including him in the first eleven just for the game time.

“According to me, if the team has an opening where he can play, he definitely should. But to put him in the starting eleven only for him to get game time, I don’t think the team needs to do all of that. I feel that Rohit and Rahul (Dravid) will be thinking the same thing,” Sanjay Bangar said.

Sanjay Bangar praised the India batsman and said that the 32-year-old is a versatile player and can find a way to hit a boundary.

“The biggest factor is that boundaries don’t come that easily in the middle part of the innings. When three or four wickets go, then how do you find the boundaries is the big problem because the ball becomes old? In a T20 match, the ball remains solid for the entire innings.

“In ODIs, in the last five overs for each team, the ball becomes soft because of which you don’t get boundaries that easily. And the second thing is, every batsman needs to find that formula on how to score runs.

And Suryakumar Yadav is a versatile player, that he definitely targets boundaries and where to hit them. He has a very good idea of where to hit them, but if there is one thing he needs to do, it is to find out how to bat between the 25th and the 40th over,” the former India batting coach added.

In the ODI World Cup 2023, Rohit Sharma-led India will lock horns against Babar Azam’s Pakistan on October 14th at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.

India’s ODI World Cup 2023 squad: Rohit Sharma (Captain), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Ishan Kishan, KL Rahul, Hardik Pandya (Vice-captain), Suryakumar Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd. Shami, Mohd. Siraj, Kuldeep Yadav.