Indian star Suryakumar Yadav’s fire continued to rage during India vs South Africa 1st T20 at Greenfield International Stadium in Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday. His unbeaten 50 off 33 balls played a vital role in India’s win by eight wickets. He stitched a partnership of 93 runs off 63 balls with KL Rahul (51 off 56 balls). During the bat, Suryakumar hit 3 beautiful sixes and 5 boundaries.
Over the course of his inning, the 32-year-old batter surpassed Shikhar Dhawan’s record for most T20I runs in a calendar year for the Indian cricket team with 732 runs in 2022 with an impressive average of 40.56 and an incredible strike rate of 180.29. Dhawan had amassed 689 runs in 2018 with an average of 40.52 and strike rate of 147.22.
Suryakumar Yadav, who recently surpassed Pakistan’s Babar Azam and spotted himself in the second position in the men’s T20 ranking during India vs Australia series, broke the Pakistani wicket-keeper batter Mohammad Rizwan’s record for most maximum sixes (45) in a calendar year. Rizwan has hit 42 sixes in the year 2021.
Suryakumar Yadav is the only one batter of India, who has been spotted in the top five places in the ICC T20 men’s rankings. He is in the second position with his 801 points in the ranking, just 1 spot below Pakistan’s Mohammad Rizwan (861 points).
Suryakumar, the Mumbai Indians batter became the only Indian batter who has scored 50 or more runs six times with an incredible strike rate of 150+ in the International T20I.
Coming to the match, Suryakumar Yadav (50 off 33 balls) and Opener KL Rahul (51 off 56 balls) steadied the Indian inning after losing two crucial wickets of captain Rohit Sharma (0 off 2 balls) and Virat Kohli (3 off 9 balls). The two batters put up an unbeaten partnership of 93 runs off 63 balls (10.3 overs) and took India to win. Earlier, the pacers Arshdeep Singh (3/24 of 4 ov) and Deepak Chahar (2/24 of 4 ov) helped India to finish South Africa at 106 scores in 20 overs.
For South Africa, eighth number batter Keshav Maharaj (41 off 35) scored the most, while Aiden Markram (25 off 24 balls) and Wayne Parnell (24 off 37 balls) were the second and third highest scorers respectively. Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje took one wicket each for their team.
