Mumbai: A day after he was named captain of International Cricket Council’s (ICC) T20I Team of the Year, Suryakumar Yadav – SKY to his fans – was endorsed by the sport’s world governing body as the numero uno cricketer in cricket’s shortest format.
For the second straight year, SKY has been honoured with the ICC Men’s T20I Cricketer of the Year (2023) accolade.
Presenting the ICC Men’s T20I Cricketer of the Year 2023 😎🙌
Congratulations Surya Kumar Yadav 👏👏#TeamIndia | @surya_14kumar pic.twitter.com/7RuXwQu7Am
— BCCI (@BCCI) January 24, 2024
What made SKY the unanimous and indisputable choice yet again?
The 33-year-old Mumbaikar has played just 1 Test match and is far from an automatic choice in ODIs. But in T20 cricket, he stands head and shoulders ahead of others.
He plays outrageous shots with ridiculous ease, he destroys any opposition attack as if it’s his birthright be it in IPL or international stage, and he does all these with amazing consistency in a format fraught with high risk.
Check out Surya’s glittering record which tells its own tale:
* In 2023, SKY scored 733 runs in 17 innings at an average of 48.86 and a strike rate of 155.95 in T20Is.
* The destructive middle-order batter smashed 4 half-centuries and 2 hundreds in the year.
* SKY smashed India’s second-fastest century in T20Is, reaching the three-figure mark in just 45 deliveries against Sri Lanka. Only Team India skipper Rohit Sharma’s 35-ball 100 stands ahead.
* The Mumbai Indians star became only the third cricketer (after Rohit and Aussie Glenn Maxwell) to score four T20I centuries. Rohit recently surpassed SKY and Maxwell by hitting a fifth T20I ton.
* In 60 T20 Internationals, Suryakumar has scored 2,141 runs at an average of 45.55 and a brilliant strike rate of 171.55.
