Adelaide: Australia's SKY-line was lit. Seagulls kept flying after resting for a couple of minutes every time the ball was hit for a six amidst high-spirited spectators, whose range of emotions swayed from sighs and gasps to screaming at the top of their lungs and finally settling with appreciative applause. These are the scenes when India's Suryakumar Yadav is batting on the 22-yard strip.
Surya has taken the World Cup by storm. The sheer onslaught on the bowlers that the 32-year-old has perpetuated in his otherwise nascent career is nothing less of a spectacle. And the conditions, mostly in favor of bowlers, with steep bounce, a hint of deviation, and always lively have so far deluded the batter. He keeps generating shots that are difficult to fathom, winning India games that the country would be hoping also come off in the semi-finals against England.
Against South Africa, his 68 runs from 40 balls came at a time when the rest of the batters struggled with Lungi Ngidi's bounce and Kagiso Rabada's pace. His 61 off 25 was equally good. The angles that he created in the last game against Zimbabwe for the ball to be deposited for six are challenging the mechanics itself. To be able to play lap shots, scoop from the sixth wicket, sweep and the conventional inside-out shots over covers is a breathtaking display of skills.
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What is dumbfounding is how he manages to take the pitch truly out of the equation and produce those majestic boundaries while scoring at the same pace. He has scored 225 runs in 5 innings in the tournament at an average of 75. A strike rate of 193.96 is maniac considering his consistency.
"I used to play a lot of rubber cricket during my school days on hard cement tracks," he told a journalist seeking to know how he produced those shots and added that he thinks of playing 2,3 shots even before the ball is bowled. The batter has also talked about how he needed to do something different in order the make that huge leap to the Indian team and for others to take notice. From changing his diet to switching to "smart work" over hard work he was previously contending with, Surya worked on those shots tirelessly on the nets to reap its benefits during the IPL and now in the World Cup.
For the World Cup, sources say he requested a green top and bouncy pitch to get acclimatize to the conditions. While R Ashwin has called him "free-spirited", coach Rahul Dravid has attributed Suryakumar Yadav's success to hard work. "That's why he is the No. 1 T20 player in the world at the moment, because of that consistency in a format where scoring at a strike rate that he does actually doesn't… 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. I think he's been very clear in his processes. He's very clear about his tactics. 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," Dravid 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, he puts on a show, without a doubt."
While the Indian fans anxiously wait for Thursday's game, having India not won an ICC tournament in a decade, against England, they will be hoping Suryakumar Yadav's bat has still got a couple of more shows left as India await the title with bated breath.
