India, Nov. 4 -- If there's one player who has come closest to matching AB de Villiers' 360-degree batting in white-ball cricket, it's Suryakumar Yadav. His flair made him a sensation, and his stellar IPL numbers paved the way to the Indian team, which he now captains in T20Is. Yet, the India skipper has never met the South African legend. But he hopes to meet him sooner than later, as Suryakumar has just one simple message for him - a desperate plea to save his ODI career.

Following his rise as a T20I sensation and his dominance in the ICC ranking charts, the Indian team management backed Suryakumar Yadav in the ODI format. They wanted him to bring his T20I flair to 50-over cricket as a lower-middle-order batter and act as a finisher. I...