Suryakumar Yadav becomes India's leading T20I run-scorer in a calendar year
Star Indian T20I batter Suryakumar Yadav's record-smashing spree continued as he overtook veteran opener, Shikhar Dhawan, to become India's leading run-scorer in the shortest format in a calendar year.
He reached this landmark during India's first T20I of the three-match series against South Africa. in Thiruvananthapuram.
In the match, Suryakumar smashed an unbeaten 50 off 33 balls at a strike rate of 151.52 on a tricky pitch during a chase of 107 runs. His knock consisted of five fours and three sixes.
This knock has taken his run tally in 2022 to 732 runs in 21 innings at an average of 40.66. One century and five half-centuries have come from his bat. His best individual score in the format this year is 117.
He has overtaken the tally of Shikhar Dhawan's 689 runs at an average of 40.52 in 2018. The left-hander had scored six half-centuries in 18 matches.
Both these batters are followed by Virat Kohli (641 runs in 2016), skipper Rohit Sharma (590 in 2018) and Rohit once again (497 runs in 2016 and 2022).
Suryakumar also is the fourth-highest run scorer in T20I cricket in a calendar year, behind Ireland's Paul Stirling (748 runs in 2019), Pakistan skipper Babar Azam (939 runs in 2021) and number one T20I batter Mohammad Rizwan from Pakistan (1,321 runs in 2021).
Suryakumar Yadav strikes most T20I sixes in a calendar year
There is no stopping Suryakumar Yadav in the shortest format of the game in 2022, as he has now become the batter with the highest number of sixes in a calendar year.
The three sixes took his tally to 45 sixes in 2022.
With this, he has gone past Pakistan's Mohammad Rizwan, who had hit 42 sixes in 2021 and held the record previously. New Zealand's veteran Martin Guptill is third with 41 sixes in 2021. Interestingly, Rizwan took 26 innings to hit his 42 sixes, but Suryakumar did this in just 21 innings.
