Ross Taylor lavished praise on Suryakumar Yadav for having awesome cricketing shots in his arsenal and exceptional skill with the bat after the Indian star smashed a mind-blowing century in the second T20I against New Zealand at Bay Oval in Mount Maunganui on Nov 20.
Notably, Suryakumar cracked his second T20I century (111*) off just 51 balls to help Team India beat New Zealand by 65 runs in the second match to take a 1-0 lead in the three-match T20I series on Sunday (November 20), with the final game set to be played on November 22 in Napier.
Suryakumar’s knock was laced with 11 fours and 7 sixes, and Taylor rated the Indian batter’s innings as one of the best he has seen on New Zealand soil, saying he has a lot of skills to counter the bowling attack. He further mentioned how New Zealand bowlers were helpless while bowling against Surya.
Ross Taylor was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo: “It was an unbelievable innings. The way he started, and the way he hits gaps; I have seen a lot of good innings in New Zealand by Brendon McCullum, Martin Guptill, and Colin Munro, but that would have to be up there with the best T20 hundreds I have seen on these shores in the history of the game.”
The former batter continued, “He takes calculated risks; the inside-out shot over cover against spinners is such a low-risk shot. I think he had a little bit of luck when he tried to ramp Lockie Ferguson, but other than that, I don’t think he really gave him a chance.”
Taylor signed off by saying, “New Zealand brought up the fielders and he backed himself to hit over them. He doesn’t try and over-hit the ball, try and muscle it over there; there’s still a lot of skill and he played really good cricketing shots.”
