Suryakumar Yadav is here and he is here to dominate ODI cricket as well. A project that had started earlier this year with captain Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid wanting to reap the benfits of his staggering T20 cricket form, has finally bore fruit. After months of struggle, despite the management backing him to the hilt and critics questioning his place in the World Cup scheme of things, Suryakumar couldn't have found a better time to find his rhythm in the format that has quite left him surprised. After his first fifty in 590 days for India in the ODI format on Friday in the opening match of the series against Australia, Suryakumar smashed a second consecutive fifty en route to his best career knock as India finished with a mammoth score of 399 for five in 50 overs. (India vs Australia Live Score, 2nd ODI)
While the talk throughout that breathtaking knock at the fag end of India's innings remained around the headache that Suryakumar will now cause for the team management pertaining to the playing XI for the World Cup, the highlight of the unbeaten 37-ball rampage at the Holkar Stadium remained that insane power-hitting against his Mumbai Indians teammate Cameron Green in the 44th over as he smashed four straight sixes.
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It was the over Suryakumar had chosen to target after getting off to a cautious start of 4 off 9. One could say that Indian had the familiarity of having faced the Aussie pacer in the nets for Mumbai Indians this year, but Suryakumar simply went berserk, showing no mercy to his IPL teammate.
If you carefully look at his batting stance at the start of the over, he was standing around off and middle, with an open stance, and as he watched Green dish out a length ball down towards leg, he quickly got into a position and played a pick-up shot over backward square leg for a six in the very first ball of the over. Green stuck to his plan and so did Suryakumar as he hit the next one for a 55 metre six over fine leg. The Aussie then changed his line and pace as he bowled a fuller one, outside off and took the pace off it, but nothing changed for the Indian as he powered it over deep extra cover for a third straight six. Green then went full in middle and leg and the batter smashed the fourth one over deep midwicket.
{{/usCountry}}If you carefully look at his batting stance at the start of the over, he was standing around off and middle, with an open stance, and as he watched Green dish out a length ball down towards leg, he quickly got into a position and played a pick-up shot over backward square leg for a six in the very first ball of the over. Green stuck to his plan and so did Suryakumar as he hit the next one for a 55 metre six over fine leg. The Aussie then changed his line and pace as he bowled a fuller one, outside off and took the pace off it, but nothing changed for the Indian as he powered it over deep extra cover for a third straight six. Green then went full in middle and leg and the batter smashed the fourth one over deep midwicket.
{{/usCountry}}However, just when Indore crowd and those glued to the their television sets were expecting a repeat of Yuvraj Singh's 2007 T20 World Cup feat, just a day after the India legend celebrated another anniversary of the epic feat, Green heaved a sigh of relief with a shorter delivery wide of off against which Suryakumar only managed a single. Nevertheless, 26 runs came off the over.
BCCI later shared the video on X with the caption: “The crowd here in Indore has been treated with Signature SKY brilliance! ”
Suryakumar's blitzkrieg knock, preceded by a fifty from KL Rahul and centuries from Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer saw India finish with 399 for five.