File photo of Gautam Gambhir (left) and Suryakumar Yadav.© X (formerly Twitter)
India's newly-appointed head coach Gautam Gambhir had recently expressed his regret for not using Suryakumar Yadav's potential while they were together in the Kolkata Knight Riders team. Surya has now cheekily responded to the regret that Gambhir has. It is worth noting that the Sri Lanka tour of India is Gambhir's first assignment in the new role. On the other hand, Suryakumar has been named the captain for Sri Lanka T20Is after being preferred over Hardik Pandya. The BCCI cited Hardik's injury issues and workload management as the reasons for the player being overlooked for captaincy in the format.
"A leader's role is to identify the best potential and show it to the world. If there is one regret that I have in my seven years of captaincy, is that me and we as a team never managed to use Suryakumar Yadav to the best of potential. The reason was down to combinations," Gambhir had told Sportskeeda.
"To abhi karlenge poora potential ko use (We will fulfil that potential now)," Suryakumar said with a smile during the press conference on the eve of first T20I vs Sri Lanka.
"Our bond has always been special. We have talked a lot. We both understand what we want to say just by our body language.
"Sometimes, even without expressing anything, we understand what each of us want to say. I am very excited for this journey. Let's see what happens," he added.
Meanwhile, Suryakumar asserted that India will continue to play the aggressive brand of cricket which hallmarked the regime of his predecessor Rohit Sharma.
Under Rohit, who retired from T20Is after the World Cup triumph in the Americas, India played a template-changing attacking game from last year's ODI showpiece at home.
"The same train will go ahead; only the engine has changed and the bogies remain unchanged," Suryakumar said.
"Nothing changes; the brand of cricket remains the same. It (the captaincy role) doesn't change anything. It has given me an added responsibility. It is good that now I can do a 'walk the talk'," he added.