Suryakumar Yadav, on Thursday (June 21), produced a Man of the Match performance as India beat Afghanistan by 47 runs in the first Super 8 game of the ongoing ICC T20 World Cup 2024.
The Men in Blue were in trouble after losing captain Rohit Sharma in the powerplay before the likes of Rishabh Pant (20), Virat Kohli (24) and Shivam Dube (10) also failed to score big. However, Suryakumar Yadav stood tall at one end and scored a brilliant fifty to help India recover from 62 for 3 and post a competitive total of 181 for 8 on a difficult batting pitch.
On a pitch where batsmen from both teams struggled to time the ball, the world’s number one T20I batsman scored his runs at a strike rate of almost 190. He scored 53 runs off 28 balls with the help of 5 fours and 3 sixes. Chasing 181, Afghanistan were bowled out for a modest total of 134 runs. For India, Jasprit Bumrah and Arshdeep Singh got 3 wickets each.
Suryakumar Yadav’s Candid Chat with Axar Patel:
After the victory over Afghanistan, India teammates Suryakumar Yadav and Axar Patel had a candid conversation with each other. The video of the conversation was posted on social media by the BCCI. During the conversation, Axar Patel tried to tease his colleague with a humorous question.
Axar Patel asked the Indian batting star about the moment in the game when Virat Kohli was giving him some batting tips. The Indian all-rounder asked his teammate if he had “cheated” Kohli and decided to play aggressively on a difficult pitch.
“We had a break in 10th place and I heard Virat bhai say something. What was that? Because as soon as you came back (on the field), you started slog-sweeping and everything,” Axar asked.
In response, Suryakumar said, “Actually, 160 looked like an even score on this wicket. It was difficult to bat at first. But then I thought if I started with a strong drive after the break and hit a couple of boundaries, it would be better.” “It will be easy for us and for the new batsmen coming in as well.”
Axar then jokingly said, “That means you cheated Virat bhai!”
Axar’s response left Suryakumar in splits before he said, “No, no, I didn’t brag! I was just being myself!”
Team India will be in action next Saturday (June 22) when they take on Bangladesh. A victory over Bangladesh will all but seal India’s passage to the semi-finals.
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