“Let’s do the smart work from here”

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Suryakumar Yadav has been a revelation since coming into international cricket and he has shown that he belongs in the Indian team. The 32-year-old had to wait a long time to get an Indian call-up but managed to cement his place in the playing XI once he arrived. With an average of over 40 and a staggering strike rate of 177, Suryakumar is currently India’s highest-ranked T20I Test batsman.

The right-hander has played many impressive innings and has adapted to any role played in the side. His consistency has been a disconcerting factor with the number of balls he has to face, and he should play a big role in the current T20 World Cup 2022 in Australia. Talking about how he turned things around, Suriyakumar highlighted how he went from working hard to being smart.

In 2020, my body was completely different: Suriyakumar Yadav

Suriyakumar recalled a conversation he had with his wife Devisha during the 2017-18 season when the need of the hour was to work smart rather than work hard. He went on to point out that there was talk of trying different things in training and working on the offside game. He also mentioned that the diet helped him look much fitter for the 2019 and 2020 national seasons and in some ways secured his first call-up to the national team in 2021.

“After 2017-18, my wife Devisha and I sat down and decided: let’s work smart from now on. You’ve worked hard, you’ve come this far, let’s do something else and we’ll see what happens,” Suryakumar said. ESPNCricinfo’s Cricket monthly.

“I started training differently. After 2018, I realized what I needed to work on in my game. I started hitting more in the side. I started to go on a diet. Did a few things that really helped me in 2018 and 2019 nationals. And going forward, my body was completely different in 2020.” Suryakumar Yadav added.