Former Indian batter Ajay Jadeja has showered praise on Suryakumar Yadav for his impressive form. Jadeja stated that the condition and situation don’t matter to Yadav and he will not change his aggressive style of batting.
Yadav was welcomed with a sharp bumper from Anrich Nortje as the ball jagged back into him in the first T20I against South Africa at the Greenfield International Stadium, Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday. However, the right-hander decided to take the attack against the South African bowlers despite the pitch being a minefield.
Yadav was once again able to hit the ground running as he scored a six on the second ball he faced. However, he wasn’t in control of the shot as he had got a top edge but it didn’t stop him from taking an aggressive role. The third ball was in Yadav’s arc and he played his trademark flick shot to smash his second six, this one he was in complete control of.
Yadav didn’t look back and once again played with the field. The 32-year-old completed his fifty off just 33 balls on a pitch most batters found it difficult to even score at a run-a-ball.
“He is not changing his style of play. No matter what’s the condition or what’s the situation. He will carry on doing it. You can look at it and say two things: ‘Look he is not playing the situation or look he is doing what the captain has asked him to do.’ They are two different styles of play,” Ajay Jadeja told Cricbuzz.
“The first was a top edge and had that gone anywhere we would have said..’ah, he should have waited a longer.’ But this is what you get with Suryakumar Yadav. The good part is that he succeeds often more than not.”
“If you are a fan of strike rates, then Suryakumar Yadav is your man,” he said.
On the other hand, former Indian wicket-keeper batter Parthiv Patel reckons a batter who is in the kind of form Suryakumar Yadav is in, should not alter his batting style.
“Once you know that you are in that kind of form, you must not change your batting. And that’s what Suryakumar did, he came out attacking. He has scored on pitches which has suited batting and here on this wicket he has a strike rate of 150, he did take his chances and initially came through.”
“You have to be lucky to survive on this kind of wicket. There were a few loose balls that allowed Suryakumar Yadav to settle down.”
The second T20I will be played at Guwahati on Sunday.
