Suryakumar Yadav has been announced as heir of Rohit Sharma as Captain of Indian Team in T20Is. After winning the T20I World Cup 2024, Rohit, Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja announced their retirement. Now, Indian cricket lovers wanted to see how SKY, the No.1 T20I player, will handle the captaincy.
While first two T20Is of Sri Lanka Tour went without much scrutiny about his skills as a captain. In the third one on 30th July, he has been put under pressure by Sri Lankan batters during an easy chase. In the match, Sri Lanka won the toss and elected to field first. Suryakumar Yadav’s team for the first time faced a huge challenge with a spin track, in a rain-hit match.
He stunned with his out-of-box thinking. Earlier, batters failed to score on the pitch. Shubman Gill(39), Riyan Parag(26), Washington Sundar(25) managed to score and take Indian score to 137/9 in 20 overs. Suryakumar Yadav scored only 8 runs due to Maheesh Theekshana’s 3/28 bowling figures. With a 138-run chase, Sri Lankan batters looked very confident.
Mohammed Siraj controlled batters in the powerplay. But spinner Ravi Bishnoi(2/38) failed to restrict scoring of SL batters. Kusal Perera(46), Kusal Mendis(43) and Pathum Nissanka(26) struggled yet looked determined to give their team first win. But when they are at 110/1 in 15.1 overs and looked coursing for a win, Suryakumar Yadav pulled out rabbit under the hat.
Washington Sundar took two wickets back to back. New batters struggled to score freely. When everyone thought Siraj and Khaleel Ahmed will finish off after 18 overs, Suryakumar introduced twists in the tale. He brought on Rinku Singh and himself in the 19th over and 20th over, respectively. Both of them gave away just 8 runs and took 4 wickets.
Hence, Sri Lanka ended scoring 137/8 in 20 overs. As the match tied, it went into Super Over and SL got bowled out after scoring just 2 runs against Washington Sundar. Suryakumar Yadav hit boundary on the first ball and pulled off a heist. Well, Rohit Sharma pulled off such a magic in T20I World Cup Final and now, SKY did the same in final match of SL series. What a great start, isn’t it?!
