Chennai: Having suffered a demoralising 76-run defeat at the hands of South Africa in their opening Super Eights clash of the T20 World Cup, Team India needed to bounce back strongly against Zimbabwe on Thursday.
Asked to bat first after Zimbabwe skipper Sikandar Raza won the toss at Chennai’s M A Chidambaram Stadium here, the Indian batters looked to be men on a mission.
Sanju Samson (24 off 15 balls), Abhishek Sharma (55 off 30) and Ishan Kishan (38 off 24) gave the men in blue an explosive start as they reached 120/2 in the 11th over.
Then came skipper Suryakumar Yadav aka SKY, and he meant business from the word go.
The very first ball he faced, SKY plonked his front foot well forward and swept Raza to the square leg fence for a rousing boundary.
It’s a shot which is bread and butter for SKY, and the commentators were hardly surprised.
Robin Uthappa mentioned that even if Surya is woken out of deep sleep and put out in the middle of a cricket pitch, he will play the sweep shot.
Sunil Gavaskar, the legendary opener, went a step further.
“He should be made the ambassador for Swachh Bharat Mission,” quipped Gavaskar, in awe of SKY’s remarkable skill.
SKY raced to 33 off 13 balls, smashing 3 fours and 2 sixes, before slicing one to the sweeper cover fielder.
After the captain’s dismissal in the 15th over, Hardik Pandya (50* off 23 balls, 2×4, 4×6) and Tilak Varma (44* off 16, 3×4, 4×6) continued the carnage to help Team India post mammoth 256/4 in 20 overs, their highest total in T20 World Cup history.
Every batter scored at a strike rate in excess of 150, as 17 sixes were struck, also a T20 World Cup record for India.
