Mumbai, Feb 7 (IANS) Captain Suryakumar Yadav hammered an unbeaten 84 off 49 balls against the USA in India’s first match in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, blasting the second-highest score by an Indian captain in the mega event.
The India captain continued his rich vein of form in 2026, scoring his fourth half-century in six matches and in the process completing 1000 runs as captain. He has scored 326 runs in six innings so far this year. His 84* is the second-highest score by an Indian captain behind Rohit Sharma’s 92 not out off 41 balls against Australia in 2024.
Surya’s 84 not out is the second-highest score in a debut innings as a captain in T20 World Cup, behind Gayle’s 88 against Australia at the Oval in 2009.
This is also the fifth-highest score by a captain in the men’s T20 World Cup as SKY moved past Jos Buttler’s 83* against the USA in 2024. West Indies legend Chris Gayle leads the list with 98 against India in 2010.
This was Suryakumar Yadav’s 29th half-century in T20Is and helped him. Suryakumar started 2026 with 32 against New Zealand and followed it up with 82 not out and 57* in the next two matches. His lone failure was at Visakhapatnam in the fourth match when he scored eight runs before he rounded off the five-match series against the BlackCaps with a 63 off 30 balls.
On Saturday, Yadav came into the middle after opener Ishan Kishan had joined his partner Abhishek Sharma in the dugout with the score 45/2 in the sixth over. He saw the team slump to 46/4 at the end of the power play as Tilak Varma and Shivam Dube departed in quick succession.
The 36-year-old explosive batter, playing at his home ground Wankhede Stadium, raced to his fifth off 36 balls, hitting seven boundaries and one six.
In between, he saw Rinku Singh and Hardik Pandya return to the pavilion without adding many runs to the scoreboard. But Suryakumar did not lose hope and continued to fight, hitting boundaries whenever possible. He raised 41 runs for the seventh wicket partnership with Axar Patel as they blasted 21 runs off the 16th over bowled by Saurabh Netravalkar.
He put on display his usual 360-degree shot-making, hitting a four and six off Netravalkar and another four and six in the same over off Shadley van Schalkwyk, the bowler who troubled India by claiming 4-25 in his first spell. He scored 21 runs off Netravalkar in the final over as India managed to reach a fighting total.
–IANS
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