“He will remain crucial for India”: Former India pacer praised Suryakumar Yadav
“He will remain crucial for India”: Former India pacer praised Suryakumar Yadav: Asia Cup 2022 has been going great so far for India. They defeated their opening game against arch-rivals Pakistan. The team registered another win against Hong Kong. As a result, they topped their group and entered the Super Four stage.
In their last match against Hong Kong, India won. The team scored 192 runs in the first innings. Virat Kohli returned back to his best with a 59-run inning. But, Suryakumar Yadav was the star of the show with a fantastic inning of 68 runs from 28 balls. He hit 26 runs in the last over and it included 4 sixes.
Praises come SKY’s way
Former India fast bowler Ashish Nehra showered praise on the middle-order batter. He said that Suryakumar Yadav fits anywhere in the batting lineup and performs for his team.
“No matter whichever position you play Suryakumar Yadav, he will remain crucial for India. He has done well wherever he has batted and has the ability to bat through any situation, having shown the same for Mumbai Indians as well as for India,” Nehra said in the ICC Review Show.
Nehra said he may not have the best hitting abilities, but he finds ways to find the boundary.
“He may not be blessed with the power-hitting ability of Pant on Hardik Pandya. But he still plays with the field and hits it all around the park,” the head coach of Gujarat Titans added.
“Suryakumar has performed incredibly well and he will definitely be in the XI, let alone in the 15. This gives you flexibility because if you play Rishabh Pant, then you can adjust him and Yadav in the No.4 or No.5 position according to the situation. I feel that your 15 for the T20 World Cup is a roundabout set and need not be tinkered with,” he concluded.
Virat Kohli is impressed with SKY
Virat Kohli was his partner on the non-striker’s end. Virat Kohli ended up his innings unbeaten at 59 off 44 deliveries.
“I was completely blown away,” Kohli said about his experience of observing India’s number four. He was impressed with his batting at a strike rate that exceeded 250.
“It was a brilliant knock. To watch it from the other end…I have seen so many from a distance when you play in the IPL against us or that being done to a lot of teams. But this was my first experience of watching it very closely,” he added.
SKY’s take on Virat Kohli
“Firstly I loved batting with him….”Suryakumar expressed pointing towards Kohli.
“When I was sitting inside, me, Rishabh, we were speaking about how do we take this game forward as the wicket was a little slow. When I went in to bat, I just tried to be myself…what I do and what I love doing. So, it was a really simple plan. Taking the first 10 balls, I wanted to hit three-four boundaries at that time. And when I got that I just kept batting.”
He explained he needed Kohli to progress the way he did with his quickfire innings.
“At that moment, I knew I needed you there. That’s why I told you to just bat from one end. It will be easy for you to cover later because I’ve seen you a lot of times. When you bat 30-35 balls, the next 10 balls you bat with a strike rate of 200-250. So it was important for me that you stay there so I bat freely till the 20th over.”
SKY’s performance took off in the 20th over. He sent Haroon Arshad for four maximums.
Performance of SKY in India vs Hong Kong match
Suryakumar Yadav had no mercy for the players of Hong Kong on Sunday. The 31-year-old Indian batsman shot 26 runs in the final over to take his team to 192/2 in 20 overs. This was their second group game of the Asia Cup 2022 in Dubai.
Yadav finished at 68 not out of 26 deliveries and had a strike rate of 261.54.
Among other valuable contributions in the game, Virat Kohli returned to form with 59 runs off 44 balls not out. The openers Rohit Sharma (captain) and KL Rahul contributed 21 runs and 36 runs each to the game.
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