Legendary Australia captain Ricky Ponting lavished big praise on swashbuckling India middle-order batter Suryakumar Yadav and said that he hasn?t seen a better player than him when it comes to innovation. Suryakumar has emerged as one of the best T20I batters to play the game in a very small period at the international level. The 32-year-old is ranked number 1 T20I batter in the latest rankings, while recently he was also named the ICC T20I Men?s Cricketer of the Year ? 2022.
He has slammed three T20I centuries in the past 6 months and has been dominating the shortest format with his astonishing career strike rate of 180.34.
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Ponting talked about comparisons of white-ball legends like AB de Villiers, Adam Gilchrist with Surya for their aggressive style of batting.
“He’s probably doing it better than anyone’s ever done it right now,” Ponting said in the latest episode of The ICC Review.
“We talk about players that can score 360 degrees … some of the shots he’s hitting back behind the wicket-keeper and over fine leg are just remarkable,? he added.
Ponting emphasised on Suryakumar?s journey which started with Indian Premier League as the legendary Aussie pointed out that the Mumbai Indians batter had brilliant shots behind the stumps five or six years back but now he has developed a strong game where he can hit the ball all around the park to score boundaries.
“Five or six years ago, he started doing that a lot in the IPL. He was very good at flicking the ball over deep-backward square and getting the ball over fine-leg,?
“Surya’s now been able to hit short balls on the way up and flick short balls over the keeper’s head and they’re going for six, not just for four,” he added.
Ponting further said that the other players will also start playing with the same approach and similar shots which will take the game forward.
“I think innovation-wise, skill-wise, I haven’t seen a better player in the game. What it’s going to do as well, a lot of other players are going to try and do the things he’s doing and it’s going to add another level of skill to the T20 game all around the world. Someone said during the IPL this year there are going to be guys who are going to try and do exactly the same as what Surya’s doing, and that’s going to be great for the game,” he concluded.
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