After years of grinding in domestic cricket, Suryakumar Yadav received his maiden India call-up earlier this year for the England T20I series at home and he justified his selection with two fine knocks.
While Suryakumar didn’t get an opportunity to bat on his debut match, he scored 57 off 31 balls in the fourth T20I to lead the foundation for India’s 8-run victory.
In the series-deciding fifth T20I, the right-hander played a brilliant cameo of 17-ball 32 as India won the game by 36 runs.
Recalling his debut innings, Suryakumar admitted that he was a bit nervous but a simple advice to self calmed him down.
“Be yourself,” he remembered telling himself on that momentous day.
Talking about his maiden T20I fifty in his second game for India, Yadav said he was fairly excited.
“If you would have seen properly, I was very excited at that time. Also, I was not happy at that time since Rohit (Sharma) had got out, but when I was going to bat, I was running in, so that shows how excited I was,” the 30-year-old said in a video posted by Mumbai Indians on their official Twitter handle.
Suryakumar Yadav batted at No. 3 position in both innings. While coming out of the dug-out, he recollected his achievements at one down spot.
“When I padded up and came to the dug-out, I was nervous, and it should be that way, if you don’t get nervous, how would you perform,” he said.
“When I was going inside, everything started running in my mind, what I have done when I bat at three. I got my answer when I said to myself ‘don’t do anything different, do the same thing, be yourself, that’s it’,” he elaborated.
Suryakumar’s first scoring shot in international cricket was a six over fine leg off England speedster Jofra Archer.
“…people speak about the six, what were you feeling on the first ball after making India debut. It was necessary to be a bit calm and I knew what Archer had been doing in the IPL, how he comes hard at the batters.
“So, at the back of the mind there was a thought that he (Archer) would bowl that particular ball and good that he bowled the same delivery,” he remarked.
(With PTI inputs)
