He hit the ball, fell to the ground, and when he got up, he saw that the ball had sped over the fine-leg boundary. Suryakumar now made room in the opposite direction, outside leg stump, in the same over, three deliveries later.
The batsman was once more followed by an alert Madushanka. This time, Suryakumar flipped him for a six over a deep backward square leg. A table that Suryakumar had hit 99 boundaries in middle overs in T20Is since the beginning of 2022 was shown on the television screens during the Indian innings.
He would hit a few more on the night to complete his third century in T20Is. Sikandar Raza of Zimbabwe came in second place with 55. That is the kind of gap that exists between Suryakumar Yadav and the rest at the moment.
During Suryakumar’s unbeaten 112 off 51 balls, the rest of India’s lineup managed five for 110 off 69. India relied on Suryakumar’s genius to post 228 for 5 after winning the toss on a Rajkot surface with a hint of green, where the new ball flew around for the first few overs in contrast to the venue’s reputation for being flat. In the 17th over, Sri Lanka fell for 137, 11 wides adding to a total where no batsman scored more than 23, losing the three-match series 2-1.
Sri Lanka attempted to bowl wide outside off after leaking numerous boundaries to those outrageous scoops and flicks. After waiting for the slower, wider yorker, Suryakumar sliced it over the third-man boundary squarely for six.
It is amazing how he is able to generate so much distance on the hit while delaying the uncoiling from his setup, allowing the slower one to arrive.
