India, Jan. 24 -- Suryakumar Yadav never stops smiling. Not when things are going well, and not when they aren't. Not when he is scoring bruising runs, and not even when his bat goes cold. The smile reflects the gamut of his emotions -- from rueful, resigned and wry to delighted, ecstatic and joyous - but it has never been despairing.

On Friday night in Raipur, Suryakumar's smile mushroomed into the broadest of grins. A grin of long-awaited satisfaction and vindication, sure, but also of relief, as if a giant burden had been lifted off his broad shoulders. Truth to tell, it had been.

Watching India's Twenty20 International captain bat through all of 2025, you wondered if this was really the man who had occupied the status of the No. 1 b...