India captain Suryakumar Yadav with coach Gautam Gambhir (PTI Photo/Kunal Patil) NEW DELHI: India captain Suryakumar Yadav has explained why Ishan Kishan will play ahead of Shreyas Iyer in the T20 series against New Zealand. He said the decision is mainly because Ishan is part of India’s T20 World Cup squad and is a like-for-like replacement for injured Tilak Varma, who is a left-hander.Tilak, who is usually an automatic choice at number three, has undergone abdominal surgery and is ruled out of the first three matches starting Wednesday.

Suryakumar Yadav press conference: On India T20I Playing XI, personal form and more

His injury opened the door for Shreyas Iyer to return to the national squad, but only for those initial games. However, the captain made it clear that Iyer is being seen as a number five batter.Suryakumar said, “Ishan will bat at number 3 because he is a part of our T20 World Cup team and he was picked in the squad first so it’s our responsibility to give him a chance.” He also pointed out Ishan’s hard work, saying, “He hasn’t played for India for past one and half year and in the mean time consistently performed in domestic cricket.”Explaining further, he added, “Since he (Ishan) has been picked for World T20, he deserves to play ahead (of Shreyas). Had it been a question of batting slots Nos 4 or 5, it would have been a different question altogether. Unfortunately, Tilak isn’t there so Ishan is our best bet.”The T20 World Cup begins on February 7 and will be co-hosted by India and Sri Lanka. When asked about batting at number three himself, Suryakumar said he is flexible. “I have batted at both positions for India. My stats at No. 4 are sightly better although they are good at No. 3 also. But then we are flexible with that,” he said.He added, “We will see and if the situation demands that we have to send a right-hander… then, I will go in, otherwise Tilak (now injured) has been doing really well at number three.”Speaking about his own form, Suryakumar admitted struggles but remained confident. “I’ve been out of runs. But I can’t change my identity,” he said, adding, “If the performance comes, I’ll take it, if it doesn’t, it’s back to the drawing board.”He ended by stressing team success over personal form, saying, “This is team sport and my first responsibility is to ensure that my team does well.”