Captain Suryakumar Yadav: Captain Suryakumar Yadav hammered an unbeaten 84 off 49 balls against the USA in India’s first match in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, blasting the second-highest score by an Indian captain in the mega event.
The India captain continued his rich vein of form in 2026, scoring his fourth half-century in six matches and in the process completing 1000 runs as captain. He has scored 326 runs in six innings so far this year. His 84* is the second-highest score by an Indian captain behind Rohit Sharma’s 92 not out off 41 balls against Australia in 2024.
Surya’s 84 not out is the second-highest score in a debut innings as a captain in T20 World Cup, behind Gayle’s 88 against Australia at the Oval in 2009.
This is also the fifth-highest score by a captain in the men’s T20 World Cup as SKY moved past Jos Buttler’s 83* against the USA in 2024. West Indies legend Chris Gayle leads the list with 98 against India in 2010.
This was Suryakumar Yadav’s 29th half-century in T20Is and helped him. Suryakumar started 2026 with 32 against New Zealand and followed it up with 82 not out and 57* in the next two matches. His lone failure was at Visakhapatnam in the fourth match when he scored eight runs before he rounded off the five-match series against the BlackCaps with a 63 off 30 balls.
On Saturday, Yadav came into the middle after opener Ishan Kishan had joined his partner Abhishek Sharma in the dugout with the score 45/2 in the sixth over. He saw the team slump to 46/4 at the end of the power play as Tilak Varma and Shivam Dube departed in quick succession.
The 36-year-old explosive batter, playing at his home ground Wankhede Stadium, raced to his fifth off 36 balls, hitting seven boundaries and one six.
He put on display his usual 360-degree shot-making, hitting a four and six off Netravalkar and another four and six in the same over off Shadley van Schalkwyk, the bowler who troubled India by claiming 4-25 in his first spell. He scored 21 runs off Netravalkar in the final over as India managed to reach a fighting total.
Article Source: IANS
