Suryakumar Yadav for all the right reasons is being hailed as the best T20 batsman in the world in view of his performance since his debut in 2021. He is currently ranked No.2 in ICC T20I rankings just 60 points behind No.1 Mohammad Rizwan.
However, before all the fame and excellent performances, Suryakumar made his name playing in IPL for Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) for four seasons where he played the role of a finisher and was even named the vice-captain of the side.
However, he had started his IPL career for Mumbai Indians before being traded to KKR and then MI captain Ricky Ponting revealed how the trade worked wonders for Suryakumar.
Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting also feels that Surya's stint with KKR became the turnaround point of his career.
“When I was in Mumbai, he was an 18-19-year-old kid, a young man. He was in our squad not quite getting a game. The year after I left, he was traded to Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) where his career started to turn around,” Ponting said in the latest edition of the ICC Review show.
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Thereafter, five-time IPL champions Mumbai Indians' picked him up in the 2018 auction and there has been no looking back for Yadav since.
“He got a bit of an opportunity in the middle order and then MI bought him back in the auction and has been a match-winning player for them for five or six seasons now, to the point that he is one of their retained players,” Ponting added.
Yadav recently became only the sixth Indian batsman to score a century in T20Is. He has scored a leading 682 runs in T20Is in 2022.
“Anyone who has seen him from a young age knew that he had an abundance of talent. The more he has played, the more he has learned about himself, the more different situations he has found himself in a game, he has found a way to not just survive, but thrive in the IPL at the international level,” the former Aussie skipper concluded.
Going ahead, Suryakumar has an important role to play for the 'Men in Blue' in the ICC T20 World Cup 2022 in Australia.
(ICC Inputs)
