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Left the luggage of captaincy in the dressing room: Suryakumar Yadav
Follow UsIn what was SKY's first game as Indian captain, the Men in Blue chased down their highest T20I target
Captaining India for the first time, Suryakumar Yadav looked at utmost ease in the first T20I against Australia in Visakhapatnam on Thursday (November 23) and helped the Men in Blue chase down their highest target in this format. The top-ranked T20I batter, who had a terrible ODI World Cup, smashed 80 off 42 deliveries and proved everyone why he is a different beast in the 20-over format.
Chasing a target of 209, India lost their openers inside three overs, but that’s when SKY and Ishan Kishan (39-ball 58) joined hands and put on 112 runs for the third wicket. The two eventually perished but Rinku Singh (14-ball 22*) got India over the line with a delivery to spare.
“Very happy with the way the boys played. I was very happy with their energy, we were put under pressure but the way everyone showed up was amazing. It’s a proud moment, very proud moment, everytime you play, you think about representing India but coming out here and captaining India is a big moment,” said SKY after India’s two-wicket win.
“I left the luggage of captaincy in the dressing room. I try to enjoy my batting. The atmosphere was amazing, thanks to the crowd.
“Thought there will be a little bit of dew but there wasn’t. It isn’t a big ground and I knew batting would get easy. Was great to see Rinku, the situation was tailor-made for him. He was calm and collected, calmed me down a little bit. We’ve been in such situations many times in franchise cricket, just told Ishan to enjoy himself.”
The Visakhapatnam surface proved to be heaven for batters, with Josh Inglis smoking 110 off 50 deliveries. Australia were 209/3 at the end of 19 overs but Mukesh Kumar conceded only five runs in the last over and that ended up being the difference maker.
“Thought they might get 230-235 but the bowlers did really well. Incredible achievement from the bowlers to restrict them to this total after the 16th over,” concluded SKY.
Meanwhile, Australian skipper Matthew Wade heaped heavy praise on Inglis, but also admitted that India were better on the day. “It was a good match in the end. Inglis got us a score we thought we could defend but the Indians came hard at us.
“These young Indians play a lot of IPL and T20 cricket. Thought we bowled pretty well, just couldn’t nail our yorkers, easier said than done especially on a small ground like this. Lot of positives to take out from this game. Inglis was class. We thought we did fairly well.”
