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'I have seen Gavaskar, Tendulkar closely but never someone so special': Ex-coach ahead of Suryakumar's Wankhede debut
Suryakumar Yadav is set to play his first-ever international game at the Wankhede Stadium, which is his home ground in domestic cricket.
Mumbai has a rich heritage of producing some of the greatest batters in India's cricket history. This includes Sunil Gavaskar, the first player ever to cross 10,000 runs in Test cricket, and Sachin Tendulkar, who holds a plethora of run scoring records that continues to be well out of reach for batters.
Mumbai is also known for its famously ‘khadoos’ attitude and praise is not easily earned. Hence, it is quite something when Suryakumar Yadav, who rewrote quite a few lines in record books of the T20I cricket in 2022, is taken in the same breath as that of Gavaskar, Tendulkar and Vijay Manjrekar. Vilas Godbole, who was coach of the Mumbai under-22 team a decade ago, said that he had whispered in a teenaged Suryakumar’s ears that he will play for India one day.
“He was very talented then too, now we can argue that he should have played for India earlier but the way he came back was remarkable. I saw him playing reverse-sweeps to medium pacers. I have seen (Sunil) Gavaskar-(Sachin) Tendulkar closely but never saw someone so special,” Godbole is quoted as saying by the Indian Express.
Godbole said that the confidence with which Suryakumar bats reminds him of the legendary Manjrekar. The 32-year-old, who has captained Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy and played for them in their recent match against Saurashtra, will finally play an international cricket match at the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai's home ground when India take on Sri Lanka in the first T20I of the three-match series on Tuesday.
“He (Manjrekar) carried that arrogance and confidence while batting. The best players set the tone of the game. They know where the bowlers are going to bowl. This is the hallmark of a great batsman. Gavaskar had it, Tendulkar had it, and now I can see it in Surya. They know where the bowler is going to bowl. Surya is more dangerous, as he can hit behind the wicket too,” he said.
Suryakumar became just the second batter to score more than 1000 runs in a year in the format in 2022. He ended the year as the highest run-getter, scoring 1164 runs at a ridiculous strike-rate of 187.43. His tally of 68 sixes in the calendar year in T20s is the highest anyone has recorded in the format in a year by a fair distance. Surya's unbelievable run in the shortest format also earned him the position of the vice-captain for the Sri Lanka T20Is, albeit in the absence of KL Rahul. Hardik was given the role to lead the side with regular captain Rohit Sharma still nursing a thumb injury.
