Indian captain Rohit Sharma praised batter Suryakumar Yadav and said that the Mumbai-based hitter is a player who plays without any extra baggage and lauded him for showing great maturity over the past few months.
Yadav has enjoyed a stellar year in T20Is as he scored more than 1000 runs in the format this calendar year. This has also seen him claim the top spot in the latest ICC T20I rankings for batters. He is also the third-highest run-getter in the ongoing T20 World Cup with 225 runs with 3 fifties to his name at a strike rate of 190 plus.
Speaking at the press conference ahead of the India vs England semi-final, Rohit Sharma said that Suryakumar’s fearless brand of batting comes from his nature and he is someone who doesn't carry any extra baggage or extra pressure.
"I mean that’s probably his nature. That’s where it comes from. I think he is the sort of guy who just doesn’t carry any baggage with him. Not his suitcases, I mean he’s got a lot of suitcases. Honestly speaking, he loves his shopping. But when it comes to carrying that extra pressure, extra baggage.
I don’t think you know he has that in him and you can see that when he plays. It’s not like he is played a couple of tournaments like that. He’s been playing like that for a year now. It shows and you can judge the kind of character he is. He likes to play like that. I don’t know if you have heard him talk in interviews, I mean he likes to bat in a similar fashion whether we are 10 for two or 100 for two. He likes to go out and express himself and that’s probably the reason he was in the team in the last World Cup. Although we didn’t have a great World Cup, I mean looking at what he has done in the entire year from that World Cup onwards,” Rohit said.
Sharma also revealed that the 32-year-old doesn't like to play on smaller grounds as he can't see the gaps while playing in them.
"As we say, Sky is the limit for him. But he has shown great maturity as well. He’s taken pressure from a lot of the guys, the way he plays. And it rubs off on the other guys as well when they bat around him. He does understand his game pretty well and he does understand what the bowler is trying to do when he is batting. So it is a collective of everything. He likes playing on the big grounds. He hates playing on the small grounds. He told me once that he doesn’t like the smaller boundaries and smaller grounds. He can’t see the gaps and I believe that he likes to see big gaps and that’s where his strength is," said Sharma.
(India Today inputs)
