January 22, 2025

Kapil Dev Puts Suryakumar Yadav On An Exaggerated Pedestal

By Slogger
First publised on 2023-01-10 08:16:37

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Holding an extreme view and carting the ball out of the park is what interests him most. He is a hard hitter at all times. Fasten your seatbelts and read.

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Suryakumar Yadav has impressed one and all with his amazing batting in the T20 format. He has shown how even the best of bowling can be taken to the cleaners if one has the ability to play fearlessly and improvise. It goes without saying that such batting can only come if the player is technically sound, which Yadav is and that is proved by the purely cricketing shots he plays in between the shots which he has patented and which few other players can produce. Currently, he is the best batter in the T20 format and occupies the top spot in the ICC rankings for the format.

But is Suryakumar Yadav a 'once in a century' player as Kapil Dev has christened him? Perhaps his recent exploits with the bat (which put him on a pedestal much higher than any of his contemporaries) have impressed the former Indian World Cup-winning captain too much for him to make such a sweeping assessment. But the fact is that Yadav has not proven his mettle across all formats and the format in which he is currently the numero uno player is not as old as the game. Hence, while it can be said that Yadav is an outstanding T20 player, perhaps the best so far, it is an exaggeration to put him on such a high pedestal. Already, South Africa's rising young star Dewald Brevis is matching Yadav stroke for stroke and some say that he has more in his repertoire of strokes than Yadav. In T20 batting, even if one is the opening batter, one gets to play just 20 overs. It is not enough to judge the player overall and Yadav has not done enough (to be fair, he has not got the chances too) in Tests or ODIs to call him a 'once in a century' player.