Playing his first First-Class match since February 2020, Mumbai’s Suryakumar Yadav carried on his T20 form into red-ball cricket to smash 90 runs off only 80 balls against Hyderabad on his return to Ranji Trophy.
Yadav had had a scintialling 2022 in T20 cricket, and with India asserted his status as a T20 Indian legend already with just less than two years into international cricket.
Should Suryakumar Yadav be given a Test debut?
Yadav’s name have been taken by many to get a call-up to the Test team too. However, his lack of red-ball cricket in the last almost three years goes against that argument. On his return to Ranji Trophy, Suryakumar, though, showed that his rich vein of form in T20 cricket is only helping him play his shots and score quickly in the longer format too.
At the Bandra Kurla Complex ground in Mumbai, on Tuesday, Hyderabad captain Tanmay Agarwal won the toss and elected to field first against a batting-heavyweight Mumbai team. By the end of the day, Mumbai are 457-3 and Tanmay would now be ruing his decision at the toss.
The aggressive opener Prithvi Shaw was dismissed early for only 19 runs, but was replaced by another aggressive batter, Suryakumar Yadav, who took the attack to the bowlers in a terrific knock.
In his belliegerent innings, SKY smashed 90 runs in 80 balls with the help of 15 fours and a 1 cracking sixer before getting out to Mehrotra Shashank. Yadav’s innings helped the likes of Yashasvi Jaiswal and Ajinkya Rahane take their own time to register their respective centuries.
The left-handed opener Jaiswal scored 162 runs off 195 balls while Rahane, who is also aiming for a comeback to the national team, remained unbeaten on 139 off 190 balls.
Twitterati went wild at Suryakumar’s briskly-paced knock of strike rate of 112 in a red-ball game. Fans said that while England are doing Bazball in Test cricket, Suryakumar Yadav brings his own Suryaball!
Here are some of the reactions to Suryakumar Yadav’s stunning innings on Ranji return:
He could be the Indian version of Bazball in Test
— Aelon Musk (@NotARealMusk) December 20, 2022
#SuryakumarYadav marks his return to first-class cricket with a 80-ball 90 against Hyderabad #ranjitrophy2022 pic.twitter.com/sDR4OhaLyw
— Rasesh Mandani (@rkmrasesh) December 20, 2022
That’s the kind of player we want in Modern Cricket ❤️…If he was in England, he would’ve already debuted in TEst..
— Kapil (@Suryekumoryedev) December 20, 2022
null
SKYBall
— Hariharan Durairaj 🦁🐿️ (@hariharan_draj) December 20, 2022
Enough of Bazball, it is SKYBall time 🥳🥳🥳🥳 https://t.co/gTyvPBAcNE
— thalafans (@thalafa64581653) December 20, 2022
Agar yeh khelega toh log Test match dekhne bhi aayenge
— Siddhant Patel (@buddy_forever02) December 20, 2022
Played boy
Ranji is a joke for you https://t.co/ApMvl66j3A— Kaushik Jegadeesan (@kaushik0803) December 20, 2022
KL Rahul can’t bat with such strike-rate in T20Is
— thalafans (@thalafa64581653) December 20, 2022
Suryakumar ended 2022 as the top-scorer in T20Is: in 31 T20Is this year, he smashed 1,164 runs at an average of 46.56 and a strike rate of 187.43.
