Pallekele : Ahead of the first T20I against Sri Lanka, India's newly appointed T20I captain, Suryakumar Yadav, opened up on his bond with head coach Gautam Gambhir, who was one of his first big supporters during his early Indian Premier League (IPL) days with Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR).
During Suryakumar's four-year-stint with KKR, Gambhir was the captain, and he expressed so much faith in the batter that at one point, he was the vice captain of the team.
India's tour of Sri Lanka begins with the first T20I on Saturday and consists of three T20Is and three ODIs. This is Gambhir's first assignment as head coach after being appointed to the position earlier in July after Rahul Dravid vacated the post following the ICC T20 World Cup win in the West Indies.
Suryakumar played 54 matches for KKR from 2014 to 2017. He scored 608 runs in 41 innings at an average of 22.52 and a strike rate of over 131, with one half-century. Gambhir was one of Suryakumar's biggest early support systems, and it was evident in the fact that the batter was once even the vice-captain of KKR.
Speaking ahead of the match in a pre-match press conference, Suryakumar said, "Our bond (him and Gambhir) has always been special."
"From 2014 till now, it has been exactly 10 years. In 2018, I joined another [IPL] franchise and he (Gambhir) joined another franchise. But we used to talk regularly about the game. When he used to play with another team, I used to play with him. We used to discuss the game to see if we could do better in that match."
"The learning has been going on since six years when I was not with him. This bond is always special. We have talked a lot, but not so much. But he knows my body language. When I see his body language, I know what he wants to say to me. And what I want to say to him. When I say no, he understands what he wants and what I want. So this bond is very special between coach and captain. I am very excited for this journey ahead of me," he concluded his point.
Suryakumar also backed the young Indian players to fill the shoes of stars like Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja, who retired from T20Is after a triumphant ICC T20 World Cup campaign in West Indies and USA. Though he acknowledged that filling shoes of these legends would be difficult, the newer players have a lot of experience and fine performances under their belt.
"It will be difficult to fill the shoes, but obviously people have practiced so much, new players have come, they are already doing well when they play franchise cricket," Suryakumar said.
"And the matches they played for India, they have done very well in that too. So I have a lot of trust in those three, who have just come in their place, that they will do well," he added.
India's tour of Sri Lanka will kick-off with a three-match T20I series, followed by a three-match ODI series. The Pallekele International Stadium will be hosting the T20I leg of the series, while the R Premadasa is getting to host the 50-over matches.
The three ODIs will be held on August 2, August 4, and August 7.
Both teams will be taking to the field with new head coaches. While legendary all-rounder Sanath Jayasuriya has been named as the interim head coach for Lankan Lions, it will also be the first assignment for former Indian opener Gautam Gambhir as the head coach, succeeding T20 World Cup-winning coach Rahul Dravid.
India's last tour of Sri Lanka for a bilateral white-ball series came back in July 2021, with Dravid coaching the Shikhar Dhawan-led side. India won the ODI series 2-1, while Sri Lanka secured the T20I series by the same margin.
T20I Squad for Sri Lanka series: Suryakumar Yadav (c), Shubman Gill (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rinku Singh, Riyan Parag, Rishabh Pant (wk), Sanju Samson (wk), Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Khaleel Ahmed, Mohammed Siraj.
ODI Squad for Sri Lanka series: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill (vc), Virat Kohli, KL Rahul (WK), Rishabh Pant (wk), Shreyas Iyer, Shivam Dube, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohd. Siraj, Washington Sundar, Arshdeep Singh, Riyan Parag, Axar Patel, Khaleel Ahmed, Harshit Rana.