Former Indian opener suggests team management to bring Suryakumar Yadav in Test cricket

Star Indian batter Suryakumar Yadav played another sensational innings in the third T20I against Sri Lanka on Saturday as he scored a magnificent 112 off just 51 balls. The 32-year-old smashed seven fours and nine sixes in his innings putting on his versatile strokeplay on display. Courtesy of his knock, India posted a mammoth 228/5 in their allotted 20 overs. SKY, as he’s lovingly called by his fans, also got praise from former Indian opener Gautam Gambhir.

Impressed by SKY’s knock, Gambhir suggested Indian team to give him a chance in Test cricket. Gambhir took to his Twitter handle and wrote, "What a knock @surya_14kumar ! Time to put him in test cricket!"

What a knock @surya_14kumar! Time to put him in test cricket! #SKYscraper pic.twitter.com/tvvoRTXEwp

— Gautam Gambhir (@GautamGambhir) January 7, 2023

Suryakumar Yadav brought up his hundred in just 45 balls which is the second-fastest hundred by an Indian in T20Is. With this knock, he has the second most number of hundreds in T20Is along with S Davizi, Glenn Maxwell and Colin Munro who have three hundreds each. Indian captain Rohit Sharma sits on top of the list having four hundreds to his name.

Suryakumar Yadav has second most number of hundreds in T20Is

The swashbuckling batter scored 1164 runs in 31 innings in T20Is in 2022 at an average of 46.56 and a strike rate of 187.43. It was also a record for the second-most number of runs scored by a batter in a year in T20Is after Mohammed Rizwan. The Mumbai batter has three hundreds and 13 fifties in just 45 matches of his career.

Coming back to the match, Indian captain Hardik Pandya won the toss and elected to bat first. After losing Ishan Kishan in the first over of the innings, Rahul Tripathi played a quick-fire knock of 35 off 16 balls to get India off to a blazing start. Following Tripathi’s wicket, Suryakumar Yadav and Shubaman Gill added 111 runs for the third wicket in 53 balls.

Axar Patel played a brilliant cameo of 21 from 9 balls to take India to 228. In reply, Sri Lanka got bundled out for just 137 in 16.4 overs as India won the series 2-1. Arshdeep Singh was the pick of the bowlers who picked up 3/20 in 2.4 overs. After the T20I series, India and Sri Lanka will lock horns in the three-match ODI series starting on 10^th January.