Against the deep orange seats of the Narendra Modi Stadium, Suryakumar Yadav's blue stood out.
Arriving in full match kit, the Indian captain had come for the pre-match press conference on the eve of the T20 World Cup final. New Zealand captain Mitchell Santner had done the same earlier in the day. It was, after all, the kind of occasion that seemed to demand it.
Around him though, practice moved in training colours. Ishan Kishan faced offspinners. Abhishek Sharma faced offspinners before breaking into a long conversation with Gautam Gambhir. Tilak Varma faced offspinners before breaking into sprints along the side of the nets.
Suryakumar was not part of those drills. Instead he stood in the middle of it, watching, waiting, occasionally joining batting coach Sitanshu Kotak as they oversaw Abhishek's session against spin, dressed as if the toss might be called any moment.
In some ways, the scene felt familiar. For much of his career, Suryakumar Yadav had looked ready before the opportunity arrived.
When his international debut finally came in 2021, in a T20I against England at this very stadium, he was already 30. By then he had spent seasons in domestic cricket and the IPL, admired for a batting range that could reach parts of the field others rarely used.
The India cap took its time, but it came calling at a moment when the global white-ball game was already shifting. Perhaps that's why it came at all. England's white-ball revolution under Eoin Morgan had changed the language of the format. India's captain then, Virat Kohli, spoke often about the "template" and Suryakumar seemed to arrive already carrying one.
His batting carried the freedom Kohli referenced. Scoops over fine leg, pick-up shots behind square from positions most batters would think twice before getting into, and powerful sweeps that made setting fields extremely difficult. No one was surprised when it took him exactly two games to produce a match-winning innings.
Five years later, he returns to the place of his debut in a very different role. Come Sunday, he will walk out as captain in a home World Cup final.
It is almost symbolic that Suryakumar's captaincy began in the shadow of the 2023 World Cup final defeat at this very ground. With Rohit resting, he was handed the chance to lead and lift a country still processing that loss, and he impressed, guiding India to a 4-1 series win over Australia.
The full transition took longer. Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid stayed on through the following year, winning the T20 World Cup in 2024, and only then did the team fully pass into Suryakumar's hands.
By then, though, India were already playing the kind of cricket that mirrored his instincts, shaped in large part by the captain he succeeded, Rohit Sharma. The humour Suryakumar brings to press conferences also feels borrowed from that school.
"Sir, the shoes are mine only, but the footsteps were his," Suryakumar joked when asked about stepping into Rohit's shoes, before continuing on a more serious note. "It was not difficult. The way he left things, I got to learn a lot from him when I was playing under him. I followed the same strategy, the same funda, going into the dressing room, along with the experience of Gautam [Gambhir] which was also very vital.
"I played a lot of cricket with Rohit, so I know how he worked. I tried to implement the same things, with a few thoughts of my own as well. It has worked really well, and hopefully it goes really well tomorrow also, and for many more years to come [smiles]."
Among the ideas he inherited was a dressing room that does not live and die by personal milestones. And to Suryakumar's credit, he has kept that at the forefront of his captaincy too, often speaking publicly and privately about selfless batting and doing it for the team.
Sanju Samson, the other day, was more than happy to go for another six and be caught on the ropes when on 89 off 42, saying later that in T20 cricket you simply "can't score a hundred, you have to keep going hard, hard, hard."
Moments like that are, in many ways, the culture of this team in action. It is something Suryakumar inherited from Rohit, but has carried forward in his own way, until it has begun to feel second nature even to players who spent half the World Cup on the bench.
"No one focuses much on personal milestones," Suryakumar proudly said before the final. "It's a team game. If someone scores 21 runs in seven balls, like Tilak [Varma] did the other day, that can be just as important as someone getting a fifty or a hundred."
What Suryakumar says he has tried to add to the dressing room is his own definition of freedom for the players. Just as he has often used humour to defuse difficult press conference questions, he has leaned on the same instinct as captain with his team.
"When I started leading this team, after five or six months I understood that @I0$," Suryakumar said. "Nothing will happen by being a big brother or a father. They have to be left alone. Nothing will happen by holding on to their ears. They have to be left free. Only then can they give their best. I have seen that when they get that freedom, they become a different character on the ground.
"I just told them that you play the same way that you are playing. State cricket, franchise cricket, international cricket. India's logo is there, the emotion is different. But at the same time, what has been successful for you, just keep following that."
Having led Mumbai many times before, Suryakumar was not entirely new to the responsibility when he took it up. It showed in the way he guided young squads through shifting personnel, quietly building results even as the spotlight remained on the Test season he was not part of. But the spotlight is on now. The final against New Zealand, he admits, carries a different kind of weight.
"It is obviously a special feeling that I am going to lead [in a home World Cup final]," Suryakumar said. "Very excited. Of course there are nerves. There will be butterflies in the stomach. But as I always say, where there is no pressure, there is no fun."
On Sunday night in Ahmedabad, when he walks out for the toss, perhaps in the same kit he wore at the press conference, Suryakumar Yadav will not stand out against the deep orange seats in the background. The stands will be blue. The occasion will be a home World Cup final. It is a stage few captains ever get to stand on, and it has found someone who seemed ready for it all along.
