Ahmedabad, March 9 – Following India's record-breaking third ICC Men's T20 World Cup victory, captain Suryakumar Yadav reflected on the importance of mental resilience, team understanding, and off-field preparation in building a championship-winning culture, and emphasized that being true to oneself is the most important factor.
India defeated New Zealand by 97 runs at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Sunday, and speaking about the lessons from his own career, Surya emphasized that failure is an inevitable part of sports.
"It's really important to understand that you will definitely fail more times than you succeed in sports. I mean, he must have seen it in his career. I have seen it last year, in 2025. The whole year, I couldn't get a 50. It took me over 400 days to get a 50 for India. But that's what I told the boys – ups and downs will definitely come in sport," he said while addressing the media at the press conference.
For Surya, success comes not just from technical skill but also from character, discipline, and fostering trust within the team.
"You have to understand, you have to respect the game. You have to try and spend time with all the good people around you. That's more important. Be true to yourself. You can't cheat the man in the mirror when you get up in the morning or you're going to sleep," he added.
He highlighted the importance of understanding teammates' temperaments, strengths, and weaknesses, and of building confidence through personal connection and freedom of expression.
"So, those small things which you do off the field, I think when we come on the field, that actually gives you a lot of confidence, that gives them a lot of composure. Also, I feel you need to understand each character on the team. Everyone is different. They bring a different skill to the table. So, you need to speak to them, their temperaments, understand them. That is actually very important, and that's what we did throughout the last one and a half years, two years," the captain stated.
Surya stressed that while the jersey colour changes when representing India, players should retain the skills and mindset that brought them success at state and franchise levels.
"Yes, the jersey colour changes, brings in a lot of emotion, the dry colour, but at the same time, what has given them success, they shouldn't be running away from it," he noted.
