Suryakumar Yadav becomes the first Indian to aggregate over 1000 T20I runs in a year
Adding another feather to his exciting career, Suryakumar Yadav on Sunday, November 6 became the first Indian batter to smash 1,000 T20I runs in a calendar year during his team's Super 12 match against Zimbabwe at the Men's T20 World Cup 2022, in Melbourne. Suryakumar, with his match-defining knock (61 off just 25 balls) against Zimbabwe, went past 1000 runs in T20 Internationals in 2022. He now has 1026 runs in 28 T20I innings in the year.
The 32-year-old is the first Indian to achieve the feat and only the second player ever to do so, following in the footsteps of Mohammad Rizwan in 2021, with the Pakistan opener finishing with 1326 runs last year.
Yadav's achievement is even more extraordinary considering he has made his record run return batting most frequently at number four, limiting the number of deliveries faced substantially. Rizwan's enormous haul last year came from 983 balls, whereas Yadav's total has been hit off just 550.
That is the biggest contrast with many of the other top run-scorers in the all-time T20I list -- Suryakumar has accumulated his sizeable number of runs at an extremely fast pace.
In 2022 so far, the stylish batter has hit 1026 runs at an average of 44.60 and a strike rate of 186.54. Averaging more than 40 in T20Is is world-class in itself. Hitting at a strike rate in excess of 180 is also excellent.
Suryakumar's innings lifted India from a chaseable target to 186/5 in 20 overs, something that proved out of their opponents' reach. With a commanding 71-run win, India topped Group 2 and set up a semifinal showdown with England in the Men's T20 World Cup,
One of the highlights of India's 71-run win over Zimbabwe on Sunday was Suryakumar's unorthodox stroke where he dispatched the ball over the boundary with a scoop shot, gaining him plaudits from legendary batter Sunil Gavaskar who was on commentary at the time.
On the last ball of India innings, having enthralled the 82,000 crowd at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Richard Ngarava had attempted to bowl a wide yorker. Seeing that Suryakumar stepped across, and literally fell over while making the contact of bat with the ball.
His scoop on one knee resulted in the ball flying to the right of short fine leg, all the way for a jaw-dropping six to end up unbeaten at 61 off 25 balls. Suryakumar also smacked six fours and four sixes in a death overs batting masterclass at a strike-rate of 244, changing the tempo of the match yet again.
He attributed the scoop shot to playing tons of rubber-ball cricket. "You got to understand what the bowler is going to bowl at that time, which is a little predetermined at that moment. I have practiced that stroke a lot when I used to play rubber-ball cricket. So, you got to be thinking what the bowler is thinking at that time.
"If the field is in, I just back myself to go there. You got to know how long the boundary behind is. When I stand there, I feel it's just 60-65 meters and with the pace of the ball I just try and time it, take it on the sweet spot of the bat and if it hits, it just goes out there," explained the right-handed batter about that scoop shot on 'Follow the Blues' show on Star Sports.