Team India were extremely impressive in the opening ODI against West Indies. The bowling unit were in charge of the contest from ball one and bundled out the opposition for a paltry total. The run-chase seemed to be straightforward and captain Rohit Sharma’s confident innings at the top made victory a matter of ‘when’ not ‘if’.
However, a barrage of quick dismissals brought West Indies a glimmer of hope in the game. Those hopes were short-lived as Suryakumar Yadav, with the aid of debutant Deepak Hooda, put his foot down on the game and took India past the finishing line.
The stylish middle-order batter was praised for his temperament and mentality. In a recent media interaction, Suryakumar Yadav was asked about comparisons with former Australian cricketer Michael Bevan, who was renowned for finishing matches in style. The 31-year-old rubbished those claims and mentioned that he only wants to be Suryakumar Yadav and wants to do justice to his potential instead.
“I think, we have kept things really simple, we are going to bat the same way, we did in the last game, it is just that when we bat first, we need to try and bat till the end to have that defendable score, but the way we batted in the second innings in the last game, I think it was perfect”, he said in a press conference.
“Sir let me be Suryakumar Yadav…with difficulty have played 5-7 games for India…but yes I am trying, whichever number I get to bat, and can win the team from any situation, so that will be my effort.
“Even if I bat first, I will do the same things, I will try to express (myself) and be fearless as I always am,” he added.
Suryakumar’s adaptability and versatility has been on show on several occasions. He has batted at numbers between 3 and 6 in T20s and ODIs and is always ready to help the team, no matter the situation. In the first ODI against West Indies, he came in to bat at number 5. Suryakumar Yadav mentioned that his wide range of shots comes from practice and this helps him to negotiate with different types of bowlers in the middle overs and death overs.
“It all came from practice, I mean it was not that difficult, I knew I just had to work on few strokes, where I can get runs… so I was focusing on that and slowly kept working in the nets, did a lot of match simulations when I was back home and with a lot of perfect practice it came automatically,” he added.
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