Sky is the limit for SKY

PTI

New Delhi, September 29

Suryakumar Yadav’s status as India’s best T20I batter in recent times has been reaffirmed as he became the highest-scorer in a single calendar year with 732 runs, surpassing Shikhar Dhawan’s 689 back in 2018.

Yadav, who scored one of his finest T20I half-centuries against South Africa on a seaming track in Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday, is only 24 runs short of completing 1,000 runs in the format.

His strike-rate in 2022 is a whopping 180.29, while his career strike-rate is a staggering 173.35 across 32 games. He has hit 57 sixes and 88 boundaries in his career so far.

With India being reduced to 17/2 in the seventh over, Yadav came in to bat at No. 4 in the first T20I against South Africa and hit two sixes off the first three balls to change the complexion of the innings.

He remained unbeaten on 50 off 33 balls as India chased down the target with more than three overs to spare and eight wickets in hand.

With the two sixes early in the innings, Yadav also went past Pakistan’s Mohammad Rizwan to record the most sixes in a calendar year in T20I cricket. Rizwan had hit 42 sixers in 2021, one more than Martin Guptill’s tally of 41 in the same year. Yadav has taken his total to 45 in 2022.