INSIDE THE MIND OF MR. 360

Flamboyant Surya Breaks Down His Approach To Batting In T20s

- Nitin.Naik

Mumbai: How is this for a stat? Suryakumar Yadav has faced 811 balls in his 28-match T20I career for India and has hit 76 fours and 45 sixes. A boundary off every seventh ball he’s faced.

His strike rate in those 28 matches is 173.29. Yet, when you see him bat, there is no sign of him slogging. There is innovation and enterprise. But there is also method.

And Surya’s method is simple. “At the number which I bat, it allows me to watch the bowler, which helps me plan my innings in the dugout. When I go inside, it’s about execution,” the just-turned 32 batter explains.

Some of those scoops and ramp shots were perfected playing rubber-ball cricket on hard cement spaces at the BARC compound.

“It’s funny, I never practised those shots in the nets. I played a lot of rubber-ball cricket in my colony. Bowlers used to just chuck the ball on a cement pitch. One side of the boundary used to be 90 to 95 metres and the other side would be 45 metres. All those scoops, upper cuts, flicks were learnt there seeing the dimensions of the ground. Now, it’s just muscle memory and those strokes come out in games,” he reveals.

Surely, there is some amount of preparation? “Yes. I study the videos of the opposition bowlers a day before the game and visualise my shots.”