India, May 3 -- It was only a year ago that Suryakumar Yadav was named the MVP of IPL 2025. It wasn't just the 717 runs at an average of 65.18 or his strike rate of 167.91. He became the first non-opener to breach the 700-run mark, doing things that only SKY could pull off.

In the year since, he has maintained a strike rate close to 150, which by any standard is excellent in T20 cricket. But his average has dropped to 29 across competitions and, more worryingly, to just 20.33 in this IPL season. So what changed?

Suryakumar's struggles in T20 cricket over the last year have been no secret. It was a concern even before the start of this year, when India were a month away from the T20 World Cup at home. He responded with three fifties in t...