Why Suryakumar Yadav’s Test call-up is a damning indictment of India’s celebrated ‘A’ system

Hours (or days) from now, Suryakumar Yadav, in all likelihood, will be on a chartered flight to England. At 30, in the form of his life, at the absolute peak of his career, Suryakumar couldn’t have hoped for a better time to get a Test call-up. Some have already expressed discontent with the BCCI’s decision, terming Suryakumar a white-ball specialist, but this is simply not true.

Casting aside the individual quality of these two players (and the others), though, there is a very important question we need to be asking the BCCI, the NCA and those responsible for grooming players at the domestic and junior levels: why is the pipeline (that not too long ago was being described as the best in the world) not churning out specialist red-ball middle-order batsmen who are capable of taking the mantle over from the incumbents?

Yet taking a step back, the system seems to be selective and peculiar in the kind of players it produces. For while there is no paucity of openers and fast bowlers in the country, there is a concerning dearth of middle-order batsmen. And the recent call-ups to KL Rahul, Washington Sundar and Suryakumar Yadav, all based on white-ball form, pretty much proves the statement. 

Consider this: in the 2019/20 season of Ranji Trophy - the last red-ball season in the country - Sarfaraz Khan was the only middle-order batsman outside of the bottom two divisions to feature among the Top 8 run-getters. Yet he is nowhere near being Test ready, having only played 17 first-class games in total and having yet to make a single appearance for the India A side.  Sheldon Jackson, Manoj Tiwary and Ganesh Satish were the only other batters from Elite Group A & B to feature in the Top 15 run-getters, but all three are in their mid-30s, nowhere close to the picture of national selection. 

Karun Nair, now 29, was not too long ago the ‘next in line’, but his form has taken a nosedive post his axing from the Test side, with him having averaged under 27 in each of his last two Ranji Trophy campaigns.

His teammate, Manish Pandey, you would think, is tailor-made for the longest format - and in many ways, he is, with his FC average of 51 being indicative of the same -  but he has not been in the reckoning for a Test call-up at all, having not represented India A in the last three years. In fact, since the start of the 2018/19 domestic season, Pandey has only played 7 Ranji Trophy games, pretty much suggesting that he himself has given up on the prospect of playing Test cricket for the country. 

Yet despite scoring runs season in and season out, none of them are even in the picture for national selection, evident by their continued snubs, not considered even as stand-bys. Really, Hanuma Vihari is the only non-opener to have come through the ‘pipeline’ in the last three years. A pecking order is currently non-existent and the out-of-the-blue selection of Suryakumar just proves that. 

Perhaps it is worth looking into what has actually transpired in the India A set-up, given it is directly below the Test side in the selection pyramid. Contrary to what those running cricket in the country are saying, has it really done its job in providing able back-ups for the senior side? Because if it did, then India wouldn’t have needed to look at Suryakumar, who has not played unofficial Tests for India A in the past half a decade. Nor would they have had to think about fitting KL Rahul, someone who has exclusively played in the top-order in red-ball cricket, in the middle order. 

For instance, in the last unofficial Test India A played without the presence of seniors, the first game against New Zealand A, the top four comprised exclusively of specialist openers. Vihari, Shankar and Srikar Bharat completed the Top 6, yet bizarrely Shankar was made to bat below Bharat, despite the former Tamil Nadu skipper convincingly being a better batsman than his Andhra compatriot. Whether these decisions - in particular the one to hoard the team with openers - proved to be of any benefit to the senior side is worth debating.

In the second unofficial Test of the same series, meanwhile, in which the senior players partook, Shankar scored 66 batting at No.5. Yet despite performing in the last A tour, Shankar has now seen both Rahul and Suryakumar Yadav jump him in the pecking order. This begs the question: what is the point of taking players to A tours if those with better white-ball form are going to be preferred over them? 

At 33, Rahane and Pujara are not getting any younger, and as their recent numbers suggest, both batsmen are on the decline. Indeed, the England series will give us a better picture, but, going by the recent worrying trends, the duo might be surplus to requirements within the next couple of years. The team will go a long way by putting in place a system, a pecking order, for selection, but should these gambles and Hail Mary picks continue, then the side could be in for a long, uncomfortable transition.