“Surya was magnificent to watch. I have been watching him for a while now. Loves this format, has wide range of shots,” Indian skipper Rohit Sharma perhaps perfectly summed up Suryakumar Yadav’s incredible knock today, in the third T20I vs England at Trent Bridge, where he single-handedly led India’s fight in the chase of a giant target of 216, but the visitors fell 17 runs short eventually.
All in all, Suryakumar Yadav stroked 14 fours and 6 sixes to end up with 117 runs off 55 balls. The next highest score in the Indian innings was 28 by Shreyas Iyer, who took 23 balls to score those. Iyer and Suryakumar shared a big partnership of 119 runs off 62 balls – out of which, though, it was SKY doing the bulk of hitting with 86 runs in 39 balls in his stand with Iyer. No other batsman could go past 20.
This is now the second-highest individual T20I score by an Indian men’s cricket – only behind Rohit Sharma‘s 118 vs Sri Lanka from 2017. Another record that SKY took over was the highest T20I score by a men’s player batting at Number 4 or below from a Full Member nation- surpassing Glenn Maxwell’s 113* vs India in Bengaluru in 2019.
WHAT A KNOCK
Can Suryakumar Yadav get India over the line?
#ENGvIND |
— ICC (@ICC) July 10, 2022
Scorecard: Suryakumar Yadav alone kept India alive in the chase
India were pegged back early in the chase by Reece Topley and David Willey as the top three of Rishabh Pant, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli were dismissed with only 31 on the board before Iyer and SKY brought India back.
Even as India lost Iyer, Dinesh Karthik and Ravindra Jadeja, on the other end, Suryakumar kept sending the balls to the boundary line to keep India afloat.
He gave a big hope when he smashed Moeen Ali in the 19th over for 2 fours and a six bringing the equation down to 25 required off the last 8 balls but finally played a mishit and was caught at long-off and that was the end of India’s challenge.
With this knock Suryakumar has sealed his spot for the T20 World Cup – although there was hardly little doubt about it before.
Netizens were in awe of SKY’s range and shot-timing and expressed their emotions on Twitter.
Here are some of the best tweets on SKY’s maiden T20I ton:
Amazing
There were quite a few brilliant shots but those scoop 6⃣s over point were just spectacular.#ENGvIND pic.twitter.com/vq7PbyfpSL
— Sachin Tendulkar (@sachin_rt) July 10, 2022
SKY YOU FUCKING LEGEND!@surya_14kumar
— The Bharat Army (@thebharatarmy) July 10, 2022
Surya shining on Ravivar!
Fifth only Indian batsman to hit an international T20 100. Take a bow Suryakumar Yadav. You deserve it. pic.twitter.com/yeAy1iMJCm
— Amit Mishra (@MishiAmit) July 10, 2022
Suryakumar Yadav, wow!! Take a bow, what a knock.
— Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) July 10, 2022
Suryakumar Yadav has the highest individual score batting at No.4 in T20is.
— Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) July 10, 2022
An innings worth millions – whole crowd gave a standing ovation to Suryakumar Yadav. pic.twitter.com/gj2ZzhyS76
— Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) July 10, 2022
Suryakumar Yadav has always batted like this, the rest of the India batters are now catching up.
— Silly Point (@FarziCricketer) July 10, 2022
SURYAKUMAR YADAV
magical wrists at work, come on SKY— Sushant Mehta (@SushantNMehta) July 10, 2022
Suryakumar Yadav: beast mode ON. What a knock. An unreal innings. Valiant effort!
— Chloe-Amanda Bailey (@ChloeAmandaB) July 10, 2022
Suryakumar Yadav brings up his maiden century and keeps #TeamIndia alive in the game.
What a knock, champ!
— Royal Challengers Bangalore (@RCBTweets) July 10, 2022
