Former Indian Test opener Aakash Chopra has showered praise on Suryakumar Yadav after India registered a commanding 61-run win against Pakistan at the R. Premadasa Stadium, Colombo on Sunday. SKY scored 32 runs off 29 balls to keep India’s innings together in the middle overs.
Ishan Kishan played a blistering knock at the top of the order and made the most of the Powerplay overs. However, Yadav played with guile as the big shots were difficult to execute on the pitch, which had a lot of assistance for the Pakistan spinners.
SKY added 38 runs with Tilak Varma and then added 33 with Shivam Dube to help India post 175 runs on the board, which was more than par.
“He might be less celebrated. I was reading on X, and he was getting criticism as well, but I liked the way Surya batted. Surya’s numbers against this team in the T20 World Cups weren’t good. He has scored a lot of runs in the T20 World Cups, had an average of more than 40 before this match, but Pakistan was an anomaly,” Aakash Chopra said on his YouTube Channel.
The renowned commentator said SKY had to just bat deep in the innings after Ishan Kishan gave a brisk start to the team.
“He wasn’t scoring runs against them. He didn’t score runs against them in the Asia Cup as well. There was just a 40. Here, I thought he batted well because our pocket dynamite had already given us such a good start, so you just had to bat a little sensibly and take the game a little deeper,” he observed.
Meanwhile, the former Delhi cricketer said no other batter was reading the ball better than SKY on Sunday.
“I felt no one was reading the ball from the hand better than him. Usman Tariq is not an off-spinner. He bowls leg-cutters and googlies, and Surya was reading it. He was also reading all deliveries from Saim Ayub extremely well,” he said.
The cricketer-turned-commentator praised SKY for scoring boundaries in the cow corner region.
“He hit two fours towards midwicket. Hitting fours in the midwicket gap with a straight bat needs special skills, and if it’s the Premadasa ground, it needs special skills into two because it’s a massive ground. He was absolutely stellar. Of course, it would have been good had he scored a fifty,” Chopra observed.
India will next take on the Netherlands at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad, on Wednesday.
