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Touchwood, it’s been incredible: Dravid on SKY
India coach was delighted with Suryakumar Yadav’s consistency—he hit his third half-century of the tournament—despite his sensational strike-rate.
Such has been the impact of Suryakumar Yadav’s batting in the T20 World Cup that India head coach Rahul Dravid feels like he puts on a show every time he goes out to bat. This time, it was a 25-ball 61 not out against a Zimbabwe side made to look hapless by a dazzling array of strokes.
At the end of the league phase, Yadav stands third on the highest scorers’ list with 225 runs at a stunning strike rate of 193.96. “Touchwood, it’s incredible. That's why he is the No 1 T20 player in the world at the moment,” Dravid said after India’s win on Sunday.
“It’s not easy to be consistent with the kind of strike rate he’s going at. So, it’s just fantastic the way he’s playing. He’s been very clear in his processes. One of the things about Surya is just the amount of hard work that he’s put in in the nets, in thinking about his game, his fitness. If I look at Surya from a couple of years ago, just to see how he takes care of his body and the amount of time he spends on his fitness, I think he’s just really earning the reward for a lot of the hard work that he’s put in on and off the field, and long may it continue,” he said.
“He’s been absolutely phenomenal for us. He’s just a joy to watch. It’s a pleasure to watch him bat when he’s in that kind of form. Every time it’s like he puts on a show, without a doubt.”
No one knows Yadav’s capability better than India captain Rohit Sharma, who leads him at Mumbai Indians. Even he admits Yadav has been almost like a one-man army. “What he’s doing for the team is remarkable. Playing and taking pressure off batsmen as well—it’s quite important from the team’s perspective,” Sharma said at the presentation ceremony.
“We know his ability and it allows the other guys to take some time as well. The confidence he shows when he bats, the dug-out can be at ease. He’s shown a lot of composure. This is something that we expect from him and he's gone from strength to strength.”
With South Africa slipping against Netherlands, the onus was on India to not leave anything to chance. That India have been able to achieve that with minimum fuss leaves them in a good position to build on this momentum. “This is a very challenging format to be able to get through and get to the top four. It’s nice, and we’re happy about it, but we know that hopefully we’ve got a couple of more good days in us as we go ahead.”
Adelaide has historically favoured spinners but in the Bangladesh game, the track hardly assisted turn. Asked if leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal will get a game, Dravid said: “We have a completely open mind about everyone in our 15. We believe anybody who comes into the 15 will not potentially make us weaker, the kind of squad we’ve picked. Anybody we need to pick will actually not make us weaker.
“Again, we’ll have to go there and see. I watched some of the games today and I know the tracks were slow and they gripped and they turned a bit. We might be playing on a completely new strip in Adelaide, and the strip we played on against Bangladesh, to be honest, did not spin.”
“The key for us will be to adjust to the conditions as quickly as possible,” Sharma said. “We’ve played a game there recently but England will be a good challenge for us. They’ve been playing some good cricket. Two teams going at each other, it’ll be a great contest. We don't want to forget what has got us here, we just need to keep sticking to that and understand what each individual needs to do. It’s going to be a high pressure game. We need to play well. If we do that there, we have a good game ahead as well.”
