India’s T20I reset was always going to hurt before it helps

India were bowled out for 76 at Trent Bridge, their heaviest T20I defeat by runs, and somewhere in the noise that followed came the inevitable question: was moving on from Suryakumar Yadav a mistake? My answer is no, and the temptation to reach for that conclusion after one wretched night is exactly the trap India need to avoid.

Remember what this squad actually is. Barely four months ago, Suryakumar lifted the T20 World Cup at home, making India the only men’s side to defend the title. Then the selectors did the unsentimental thing. They dropped him for the tour of Ireland and England, handed the captaincy to Shreyas Iyer, and blooded a 15-year-old in Vaibhav Sooryavanshi. That is not a panic. That is a plan, and plans like this always look worst in their opening chapter.

The maths behind the call

Dropping a World Cup-winning captain sounds brutal until you look at the calendar. The next T20 World Cup is in 2028, in Australia and New Zealand, and Suryakumar will be 38 by the time it comes around. His numbers had also dipped from the untouchable version of a couple of years ago. He made 242 runs across nine innings at last winter’s World Cup at a strike rate just over 137, then had a quiet IPL, averaging barely 20. For a finisher who trades on being the most destructive man in the XI, those are not the figures that buy you another cycle.

So the selectors chose the future. Iyer arrives with real captaincy pedigree, having led Kolkata Knight Riders to the IPL title in 2024 and dragged two other franchises to finals. Sooryavanshi and Abhishek Sharma are the batters India want batting through the 2028 tournament, not being introduced to it. On paper, the logic is hard to argue with.

Transitions are supposed to sting

What nobody enjoys admitting is that this is the price of doing it properly. A new captain finding his feet, kids learning the international game on the job, a settled England side smelling blood. Of course it has been messy. India have lost the first two matches and folded for 76 in the third, and it stings all the more because the team that won everything in March feels like a different lifetime.

But a bad tour and a bad idea are not the same thing. If India had kept Suryakumar for one more year out of loyalty, papered over the transition, and then walked into 2028 with a 38-year-old finisher and a bench of players short on big-tournament reps, that would have been the genuine failure. This is uncomfortable. It is not wrong.

The real mistake would be flinching

Here is what worries me more than the 76. It is the thought of the selectors losing their nerve, recalling Suryakumar for the ODI leg or the next assignment, benching Sooryavanshi after a couple of failures, and quietly abandoning the whole project three matches in. That would waste the entire point of starting it.

Iyer deserves a proper run at this, and the young batters deserve the space to fail before they succeed. Judge this side in the back half of 2027, when the World Cup is on the horizon and the miles are in their legs. Judging it on a grim Tuesday in Nottingham tells you nothing you did not already know: that rebuilds are painful, and that India have only just started theirs.

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