Suryakumar Yadav led his team in two impressive victories against Sri Lanka. After winning by 43 runs on Saturday and seven wickets on Sunday, the new captain of India’s T20 side broke his silence to share his vision for the team. Playing with positive intent and a fearless attitude is Yadav’s emphasis; this will be the new strategy for how the team will play and succeed in future games. The team had talked about the brand of cricket they wanted to play before the series. Suryakumar wanted his team to play a bold and aggressive brand of cricket. He was very excited about how well this was executed by the team in the matches. The player himself batted superbly to make major contributions to both victories.
Suryakumar’s Yadav philosophy
The second T20I game was rain-affected and changed the whole dynamics of the game. Sri Lanka got 161 for 9 after being solid at 130 for 2 in 15 overs. The target from the Lankan scoreboard for India was revised to 78 runs in 8 overs because of the rain. Surya admits that the rain worked to India’s advantage and made their task easier. Suryakumar lauded his team for their excellent display of batting under difficult conditions. He added that anything below 160 would have been very tough to score, but definitely, the rain did their side some good. It was very decent and enjoyable to see the way the team batted towards the revised target; this proves the skill and flexibility of the team.
With one game left in the series, Suryakumar was asked whether other players could get a chance to play. He added that this is something that team management has to decide. He expressed great satisfaction over the team’s overall performance and especially the character shown by the team in tough situations.
Pitching differences
Ravi Bishnoi, known for his effective googly deliveries, seemed quite satisfied with his consistent performance. He said the conditions worked in his favor due to it being a decent pitch for spinners. He enjoyed the responsibility of bowling at crucial junctures and also felt very confident that the captain and the whole team management showed faith in him.
On the other hand, Sri Lankan captain Charith Asalanka expressed disappointment in their performance. He added that it was the pressure that the middle order succumbed to that took away the game from his team. Asalanka said that there are things to improve, especially at the crunch moments. He pointed out that when the ball gets older and the pitch conditions change, batting does get quite a challenge.
Sri Lankan captain disappointment
He has also added that they have fallen behind by 15-18 runs, which did make a difference. The weather played its part with the wet outfield, which made it difficult to bowl. But at the same time, he feels that, as professional cricketers, they need to do better regardless of the conditions. The series embodied both the positives and negatives of the two teams. India’s new strategy of playing fearless and aggressive cricket worked, while Sri Lanka struggled for consistency. The matches further proved that in T20 cricket, one needs to be adaptable and have resilience.
Each team will go back and think about what went wrong and how to get better. India’s aggressive and fearless attitude sets a very good example for games in the future. Sri Lanka will work out their problems and then come back harder. This final game will set the stage for both teams to try and experiment with what they have learned.
