Skipper Suryakumar Yadav would want the attacking batter in him to front up and bolster his leadership against New Zealand when the five-match T20I series gets underway in Nagpur on Wednesday, serving as a final dress rehearsal for India's World Cup title defence in less than three weeks' time.
Since Suryakumar took over as India's T20 skipper in 2024, the results have been stunningly good with a winning percentage of more than 72 per cent. It papered over the skipper's woeful form with the willow for quite a while but not anymore.
The Indian T20 outfit has been on autopilot mode during the last two years with an odd defeat here and there being small blemishes for a crack team made up of top quality IPL performers knowing their roles to the 'T'.
However, the pressure of playing at home amid expectations that India become the first ever team to defend its title will weigh heavily on Suryakumar's mind going into the New Zealand series.
New Zealand, in the past one year, has achieved many firsts, including a Test series whitewash and a first ever bilateral ODI series win in India.
But when it comes to T20Is, India under Suryakumar have been a different beast having won 18 out of 25 games, largely due to Abhishek Sharma's blazing starts and Varun Chakravarthy's bamboozling performances in middle overs of opposition innings.
New Zealand have won 13 out of their 21 T20Is post the 2024 T20 World Cup.
With Devon Conway, skipper Mitchell Santner, world's premier T20I seamer Jacob Duffy and the duo of Daryl Mitchell and Glenn Phillips in their ranks, New Zealand are as strong an opposition as one can expect.
It also means that the defending champions will get to make perfect World Cup preparations.
In this backdrop, it is Indian skipper Suryakumar, whose poor form has been the weak link of a formidable team.
Unarguably, 2025 was his worst in India colours with only 218 runs from 19 games without a single fifty and a strike rate of 123 plus.
It made matters worse that he got himself down to No.4 in order to allow Tilak Varma to get a longer run at No.3.
Bowlers across the globe have found out that straight deliveries at hard lengths can keep him quiet and conjectures about the state of his right wrist have only made things difficult.
A non-performing captain slowly loses respect of the dressing room and that is the last thing that the man from Mumbai's Chembur would want going into the T20 World Cup.
Shreyas or Ishan?
In any other country, a player of Shreyas Iyer's calibre would have been an automatic choice in a T20I set up, having led three separate franchises to IPL finals and winning once.
The best player of spinners in this Indian set-up, Iyer's lucky break has come due to in-form Tilak Varma's abdominal surgery.
It still isn't clear if Tilak would recover in time for the marquee event but presence of Iyer at No.4 would give Suryakumar a chance to bat at a familiar No.3 slot.
However, if one takes into account that Tilak is a left-hander then Ishan Kishan, currently in red hot form, could also make a case for himself.
Kishan is someone who won't be effective beyond No.3 as he is more of an enforcer within powerplay overs but for the skipper's own sake, he would do better batting at that slot.
Return of Hardik, Bumrah and Varun
The T20 series also marks the return of all-rounder Hardik Pandya and pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah after some well-earned rest during the ODI series.
Pandya brings in the balance to the T20 side with his skills and his presence means the team management can afford to play an extra specialist.
They will be joined by Varun Chakravarthy, the biggest "X" factor in this set up whom the New Zealanders haven't played much.
Varun's four overs between 7th to 15th often turn the match on its head and with Kuldeep Yadav being in indifferent form, the Tamil Nadu man would need to step up even more.
Varun's battles against Mitchell and Phillips will decide the fate of the series.
For New Zealand pacer bowling all-rounder Kristian Clarke, who claimed seven wickets including Virat Kohli twice across the three games of the recent ODI series, wil stay for the T20 series as both Michael Bracewell and Adam Milne are nursing niggles.
Teams (From):
India: Suryakumar Yadav (captain), Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson (wk), Ishan Kishan, Shreyas Iyer, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Varun Chakravarthy, Rinku Singh, Arshdeep Singh, Ravi Bishnoi, Harshit Rana.
New Zealand: Mitchell Santner (captain), Devon Conway, Bevon Jacobs, Daryl Mitchell, Glenn Phillips, Tim Robinson, Jimmy Neesham, Ish Sodi, Zak Foulkes, Mark Chapman, Michael Bracewell, Rachin Ravindra, Kyle Jamieson, Matt Henry, Jacob Duffy, Kristian Clarke.
Match Starts 7 pm.
