Suryakumar Yadav breaks multiple records in India's win over South Africa

Bengaluru, September 29: Suryakumar Yadav broke multiple records during India's 8-wicket win over South Africa in the first T20I at the Greenfield International Stadium in Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday (September 28).

Suryakumar, who recently climbed to the second position in the latest MRF Tyres ICC Men's T20I Player Rankings, scored an unbeaten fifty, sharing a 93-run stand with KL Rahul to take India past South Africa's paltry target of 107 with 20 balls to spare.

The 32-year-old walked in at No.4 with India in a spot of bother after being reduced to 17/2 in the seventh over, losing skipper Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. Yadav hit two sixes off his first three balls to change India's momentum after a slow start.

During his unbeaten knock of 50 not out off 33 balls, Yadav broke two records. First up, he broke the record for most sixes in any calendar year in T20Is. With the two sixes early in the innings, Yadav went past Pakistan's Mohammad Rizwan's tally of 42 sixes in 2021.

Yadav struck a total of 3 sixes on Wednesday (September 28) night taking his tally of sixes to 45 in 2022 with three more months to widen the gap with Rizwan. While Rizwan took 26 innings for 42 sixes, Suryakumar took just 21 innings to break that record.

Here is a look at the current top 10 players with most sixes in T20Is in a calendar year:

Later in the innings, Yadav also broke the record for most runs by a Indian in T20Is, surpassing Shikhar Dhawan's score of 689 runs in 2018.

Yadav, who has currently scored 732 runs in the shortest format in 2022, has scored these runs at a strike rate of more than 180 and an average more than 40.

Here is a look at the top 10 most runs scored in T20I by Indian in a calendar year:

Yadav did not only go past his compatriot Dhawan during the knock, he also surpassed former Ireland batter Kevin O'Brien, who had scored 729 runs in 2019. He is also very close to surpassing another Irishman in the list of most runs in T20Is in a calendar year.

With the amount of T20I fixtures remaining in the year, Yadav can add more to his tally to extend his record for most runs by an Indian in the shortest format in a calendar year as well as most sixes by any player in a calendar year.

Here is the current top 5 for most runs by a player in T20Is in a calendar year: