For the first time since his sports-hernia operation in July, Suryakumar Yadav has picked up a bat. The India T20I captain spent an hour at the BCCI Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru late last week, working through a low-key net under the eye of board physios.
“The bat swing felt normal, that’s always the first hurdle,” he later posted on Instagram. Small step, but an encouraging one for a side that hopes to have him back in time for the Asia Cup, scheduled to start on 9 September in the UAE.
Suryakumar’s surgery, carried out in Munich, addressed a tear in the lower right abdomen. Since returning home he has been on a carefully-graded programme: light mobility, core stability, then hitting tennis balls before graduating to the nets. A BCCI medical officer, preferring not to be named, told us, “He’s exactly where we expected him to be at the six-week mark.”
The plan – barring setbacks – is to lift his workload over the next fortnight, sprinkle in a couple of centre-wicket simulations, and clear him for match practice by the end of August. Originally the aim was the Bangladesh T20Is that were pencilled in for late August, but that tour has been pushed to 2026, so the Asia Cup is now the realistic target.
Since the IPL ended in June, Suryakumar’s only cricket came in the Mumbai T20 League, where he knocked 122 runs in four knocks for Triumph Knights. West Zone sounded him out for the Duleep Trophy, yet that semi-final falls on 4 September – too close for comfort. Instead he is likely to stay at the CoE and top up with internal matches.
The Asia Cup is the first stop on India’s road to the 2026 T20 World Cup, which they co-host with Sri Lanka. If all goes to plan, it will also be Suryakumar’s maiden multi-nation assignment as full-time T20 skipper, having taken over from Rohit Sharma after the 2024 world-title win. Plenty of incentive, then, but for now the focus remains simple: one solid session at a time.
