Suryakumar Yadav's Rise As The No 1 T20 Batsman

Suryakumar Yadav is not just a name in the cricket world, it's an emotion for the young cricketers who want to go and play an aggressive brand of cricketer with attacking and unorthodox shots. But to become the number 1 T20I batter in the world has to go through a lot of ups and downs in his cricketing career during the initial days where, despite performing well in domestic games, he was not getting chances to to play for the Indian cricket team.

Yadav was born in a middle-class family and always had big dreams to follow and the passion for cricket inspired him to become a cricketer and represent his country. Having a supporting father, Mr. Ashok Yadav enrolled him in a cricket camp at BARC Colony in Chembur. At the age of 12, he went to the Alf Vengsarkar Academy, where he learned the nuances of the game from former Indian great Dilip Vengsarkar, which helped him to take part in different cricket tournaments later from different cricket clubs in Mumbai.

Suyakumar Yadav has become a great name in domestic cricket after debuting in 2010 from Mumbai in Vijay Hazare Trophy, where he set the stage on fire by scoring 41 runs in 37 balls, the second-highest score of the match. Apart from this, he made his first-class debut against Delhi during the 2010-11 Ranji season and became the top scorer for Mumbai with  73 runs. After impressing everyone with his incredible batting talent, the Mr. 360, was picked up by the Mumbai Indians franchise in 2011 season of the Indian Premier League before moving to Kolkata Knight Riders as a handy lower down the order and played a few useful cameos for KKR. Suyakumar Yadav had a great strike rate while playing for the Kolkata Knight Riders franchise.

The 2011 calendar year was one of the best years for Suryakumar Yadav, in which he was among the top scorers for Mumbai, with 754 runs in 9 matches at an average of 68.54. Along with a double hundred against Odisha. Seeing Surya's consistency and determination, he was also announced as the captain of the Mumbai Ranji team before the 2014-15 season. However, he left the captaincy to concentrate on his batting.

Talking about Suryakumar Yadav's list of IPL teams. After picked up by Mumbai Indians in 2011, Kolkata Knight Riders gave Yadav the image that he had been searching for for a long time in international cricket he was known as a finisher who could play big shots at the end of the innings, which also helped them to win the 2014 title under the leadership of Gautam Gambhir.  But after playing a few seasons and despite performing well, the right-hand batter was left and he was rene-signed by MI again - a move that proved to be a revelation.

Now, Suyakumar Yadav was given a chance to play as the middle-order batsman for the Mumbai Indians franchise, which was quite challenging as he has always played as a lower-down batter for the Kolkata-based franchise in the previous IPL season. But this batting position change made by the Mumbai Indians management played a great role in Suryakumar Yadav's career as he emerged as a Mr. dependable for the team and in the 2018 season of the Indian Premier League he finished as the highest run-getter in the tournament for Mumbai with a remarkable tally of 512 runs with an average of 36.57.

The Setbacks and rewards

After performing for almost 11 years in domestic cricket since 2010 Suryakumar Yadav finally made it into the Indian Team in the home series against England. However, he didn’t get a chance to bat in the first game at Ahmedabad. Later, in the second game, he marked his appearance in International cricket in style by hitting a six on the very first ball and becoming the first batsman to do so in T20I cricket. 

In the same year, Yadav made his debut in the 50-over format in a series against Sri Lanka in Colombo, where he scored his maiden ODI fifty. In the next year, he was named in the India squad for the T20I World Cup 2021, where he scored 31 runs across two innings and three matches in the World Cup. In July 2022,  Suryakumar scored his maiden T20I century against England at Trent Bridge, scoring 117 off 55 balls and becoming only the fifth Indian player to score a century in T20I and only the second to reach the mark batting fourth or lower.

At the end of October 2022, Suyya became the fastest batsman to score 1000 runs in T20Is in terms of balls faced, reaching the mark in 573 balls in the series against South Africa, which helped him to become the number 1 batsman in the ICC men's player rankings for T20I batsmen.

Surya Started to Shine

After 2021 Suryakumar Yadav's career started to shine in the cricket world as he broke several records for the Indian team and became a regular part of the T20I team for the men in Blue. In the same year, he won the ICC  Men's T20I Cricketer of the Year award for his performance in 2022 where he scored the fourth-fastest century by an Indian batter in a T20 World Cup, reaching the mark in 25 balls against Netherlands at Sydney.

In 2023, Suryakumar Yadav scored the second-fastest century by an Indian batter in T20Is and the third of his career, reaching the mark in 45 balls against Sri Lanka at Rajkot.