On a pitch where swashbuckling other Indian batters failed to put their foot on the accelerator, Suryakumar Yadav just came and conquered the Hong Kong bowling attack with his 360-degree shots all around the Dubai International Cricket Stadium. Suryakumar gave the much-needed push to the Indian innings which was in the second gear when KL Rahul was batting with Virat Kohli.
Rahul had another poor outing with the bat as he scored 36 runs off 39 balls against a bowling attack which doesn’t play much against big teams. The 30-year-old looked rusty throughout his stay in the middle. He managed to hit two sixes but was struggling to rotate strike which was a major drawback.
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On the other side, Kohli scored a half-century to show a glimpse of his imperious skills with the bat in hand. The batting maestro remained unbeaten on 59 off 44 balls which included four and three sixes. He started slow and took some time to get settled in the middle, however, managed to end the innings with a decent strike rate of 134.09 with some big shots at the fag end of the innings.
However, it was a completely different case with SKY who opened his account with a four on the first ball and he just didn’t stop after that. The commentators thought that the pitch was two-paced but when Surya was batting they were just astonished to see his 360-degree gameplay.
He remained unbeaten on 68 off just 26 balls and struck 6 sixes and as many fours to help India post a daunting total of 192/2.
Surya is arguably the best Indian batter in the shortest format of game and he proved on Wednesday why he is rated so highly by many. The Hong Kong pacers didn’t give much pace to the batters as a result Rahul and Kohli struggled to score at a healthy rate as they were allowing the ball to come to the bat. On the other hand, Surya had a clear thought in his mind about playing every ball. He scored all around the park with total ease as he tried to reach the length of the ball on several occasions when the bowlers were trying to deceive him with slower ones.
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In the last over, Surya slammed four sixes to help India cross the 190-run mark. Interestingly he chose different areas of all those shots in the final over of Haroon Arshad. The first one was dispatched over point, and followed it up with a six over covers as Surya shuffled a bit towards the ball to connect it. Arshad changed his line and bowled it straight and SKY with his imperious skill smashed it down the ground for an 87-meter six. The clueless Hong Kong pacer tried to bowl a bouncer on the fifth delivery but missed the line as Surya hit over the fine leg to collect the fourth six of the over.
It was one such entertaining knock where even Kohli bowed down in front of Surya after the innings when the two batters were walking back towards the dressing room.
After the innings, Suryakumar talked about his wide range of shots and said he used to play them as a kid with rubber-ball on cement pitches.
“I have not actually practised those shots, but it all comes from rubber ball cricket I used to play as a kid with friends on cement pitches. It all comes from there. The wicket was a bit sticky before [at the start of the match] and I was telling Rohit Bhai and Rishabh Pant that when I get in I will try to up the tempo and I was aiming at around 170. But, when I went into bat and how things went for me, I just expressed myself and it went really well for us. 190 is a good total on this wicket,” Suryakumar told broadcasters.
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