'He played some amazing shots which I haven't seen before': England bowler in awe of Suryakumar Yadav's brilliance

Suryakumar Yadav became the fifth Indian to score T20I century and almost single handedly kept India in the chase in the third T20I against England.

India may have lost the third T20I against England in but Suryakumar Yadav's sensational maiden international century left everyone impressed. As it turns out, this included the opposition, with fast bowler Reece Topley saying that the 31-year-old right-hander played shots that he had never seen before. Topley won player of the match ahead of Suryakumar, having dismissed India captain Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Shreyas Iyer and recorded figures of 3/22.

Suryakumar became the 5th Indian to score a T20I century (Action Images via Reuters)

“I am not a massive cricket watcher and I haven't really seen him play before. But he played some amazing shots that I haven't seen before,” said Topley in the post-match press conference. He said that while Suryakumar presented a daunting challenge, England were never fazed by it as they knew that keeping the pressure up will provide dividends.

“That was an amazing knock and one that deserved to be on the winning side for sure. I think, with us having taken those early wickets, the pressure was on him. He kept hitting the ball all over the place but we knew that we were quite close. If we took his wicket or kept taking wickets at the other end, we weren't that far away,” said Topley.

Suyakumar was dismissed in the end on 117 off 55 balls, smashing 14 fours and six sixes. He fell to Moeen Ali in the second last over and India lost the match by 17 runs. However, they had already sealed the series win by winning the previous two matches and it ended 2-1 in their favour.