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‘He played gully cricket with RCB…’: Gavaskar's astonishing remark on Suryakumar Yadav's blistering knock in IPL 2023
Sunil Gavaskar said Suryakumar Yadav's batting gave him feel of "gully cricket" where the batters "toy" with the bowlers.
How often do you find greats like Sourav Ganguly and Virat Kohli drawing "video game" references to describe a batter at the highest level? That's what Suryakumar Yadav is capable of. He can make bowlers look ordinary, to say the least. After enjoying the time of his in T20Is for close to two years, SKY saw a rare dip in form in the last few months only to roar back in the second half of IPL. And on Tuesday, against the Royal Challengers Bangalore, he was back to his menacing best. The result? Mumbai Indians chased down RCB's 200-run target with 21 balls to spare - the most in the history of IPL for successful 200-plus chases - at the Wankhede Stadium.
Suryakumar smashed six sixes in his fourth half-century in his last six IPL innings but equally importantly he was also adept at finding the gaps, drilling seven boundaries to keep the scoreboard ticking over. He ended up with 83 off 35 balls. Such was the quality of his strokeplay that Virat Kohli, who generally is feisty on the cricket field, walked up to him and hugged him when was making his way into the dressing room.
Former India captain Sourav Ganguly said, "It seems he (Suryakumar) bats on a computer." The legendary Sunil Gavaskar too spoke on similar lines. He said SKY's batting gave him feel of "gully cricket" where the batters "toy" with the bowlers. "SKY was toying with the bowlers. He gives you a feeling of gully cricket when he's batting like that. He's just gotten better with practice and hard work. His bottom hand is so powerful that he uses it to perfection. Against RCB, he started with hitting towards long-on and long-off and later agricultural shots all around the park," Gavaskar said on Star Sports' Cricket Live.
Suryakumar said he had to adjust his approach as Bangalore took pace off the ball to make six-hitting difficult. "They came up with a plan here," said Suryakumar, who formed a 140-run partnership with Nehal Wadhera (52 not out). They knew they had to bowl slow, make me hit towards the bigger boundary and not give me pace."
SKY and Wadhera, who struck his maiden IPL fifty put together a partnership of 140 runs to put MI in the driver's seat in the run chase.
Suryakumar said he had been practising for such situations.
"Your practice has to be the same as to what you want to do in the matches," he added. "I do proper practice. We have open net sessions and I keep the fielders on and come out of my comfort zone ... I know my game, I know where my runs are and I don't do anything different."
Speaking of Wadhera, Gavaskar said, "When you are batting with SKY your confidence is boosted, but the best thing about Nehal Wadhera's innings was that he wasn't looking to play shots like SKY. The best thing about him is that his balance was superb."
