Legendary Australian cricketer Ricky Ponting has known as India middle-order batsman Suryakumar Yadav a trailblazer, inspiring a brand new breed of gamers to emulate his model of play and take T20 cricket to “another level” globally. can do.
The 32-year-old Suryakumar was not too long ago named the ICC Men’s T20I Cricketer of the Year after he grew to become solely the second batsman on the planet to attain over 1000 runs in a calendar 12 months within the shortest format of the sport.
Surya scored two centuries and 9 half-centuries on his method to 1,164 runs in 2022, second solely to Pakistan’s Mohammad Rizwan, who leads the charts in 2021 with 1,326 runs.
Ponting instructed the ICC on Friday, ‘I believe I’ve not seen a greater participant within the recreation (than Suryakumar) by way of innovation and talent.’
“What it will do is numerous different gamers are going to try to do what he is doing and it will add one other stage of talent to the T20 recreation world wide.
“Somebody said that during the IPL this year (2022), there are going to be people who are going to try and do what Surya is doing, and it’s going to be great for the game,” the Australian Mahan mentioned.
Surya’s over 1,100 runs final 12 months got here in 31 T20Is at an astonishing strike fee of 187.43 and a mean of 46.56, which noticed him prime the ICC Men’s T20I batting rankings.
Ponting additionally known as the India cricketer the best innovator within the shortest model, evaluating his model of batting with that of South African white-ball specialist AB de Villiers and former Australian wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist.
“He’s in all probability doing it higher than anybody has performed but. We speak about gamers who can rating 360 ​​levels… behind the keeper and over wonderful leg. Hitting photographs, they’re outstanding. Ponting mentioned he had observed Surya’s innate expertise within the IPL a couple of years again, the place he was making it look really easy to flick the ball to deep-backward sq..
The former skipper mentioned the batsman has taken his stroke-play to a different stage and is taking part in some actually audacious photographs like flicking the brief ball over the wicket-keeper’s head for a six.
“Five or six years again, he began doing quite a bit within the IPL. He was excellent at flicking the ball over deep-backward sq. and pulling it over fine-leg,” Ponting mentioned.
“Surya is now able to hit short balls on the way and flick short balls over the keeper’s head and he is not just going for fours but sixes.” Ponting mentioned that originally he thought that Suryakumar would by no means attain such heights, however his work ethic and strict routine have led to his success.
The cricketer scored the third most runs within the T20 World Cup in Australia – 239 – behind solely Virat Kohli (296) and Dutchman Max O’Dowd (242).
He then continued the nice work within the T20I sequence in opposition to New Zealand and Sri Lanka and climbed to the second highest T20 batting ranking ever recorded – 908 factors.
Ponting mentioned, “To be honest, I didn’t think he would reach the level he has.”
“The quantity of laborious work he is put in – you may in all probability inform from the form of his physique. He’s in all probability fitter than ever, being across the Indian set with the likes of Kohli and Shreyas Iyer and these guys, who’re exceptionally Fit younger.
With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
