Srinagar: Team India superstar Virat Kohli has said that it was treat for him to watch Suryakumar Yadav from so close against Hong Kong on Wednesday.
Suryakumar Yadav walked in with India’s run rate hovering around seven runs per over and made run-scoring look extremely easy, racing away to an unbeaten 68 off 26 balls.
In a post-match chat with Yadav, Virat Kohli, who was at the other end while Yadav went on the rampage, revealed that he was “completely blown away” by the knock.
“SKY played an outstanding knock, a knock that I enjoyed thoroughly from the other end,” Kohli said in the chat with Yadav on BCCI.tv.
“I’ve seen so many innings when we play in the IPL, or that being done to other teams, but this was my first experience of watching very closely. I was completely blown away.
“I honestly believe that the way you played today, if you can stay in that zone, you can literally change the complexion of the game against any team in the world.”
The duo had put on a 98-run partnership off 42 balls with Yadav doing the bulk of the scoring.
“When I was sitting inside, me and Rishabh [Pant] were speaking about how we could take game this ahead as the wicket was a little slow,” Yadav said in the same conversation.
“When I went into bat, I tried to just be myself and do what I love doing. It was a really simple plan: taking the first 10 balls, I wanted to hit three-four boundaries and when I got that, I just kept batting.”
Yadav brought up his half-century off 22 balls, but Yadav said that after the first 10 balls, he knew he needed strong support from the other end to keep going the way he was.
“I knew I needed you there. That’s why I told you to just bat from one end. It will be easy for you to cover on later because I’ve seen you a lot of times. When you bat 30-35 balls, your next 10 balls you bat with a strike rate of 200-250. So it was important for me that you stay there so I bat freely till the 20th over.”
