T20 World Cup 2022: Suryakumar Yadav completes 1000 T20I runs in 2022, becomes first Indian to do so

Melbourne, Nov 6: Suryakumar Yadav made heads turn with yet another blistering knock in the ongoing ICC T20 World Cup 2022 and touched several milestones in Team India's last league game against Zimbabwe here at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) on Sunday (November 6).

The explosive right-handed batter - who is ranked number one in latest T20I rankings - achieved a major milestone at the MCG and completed 1000 T20I runs in the year 2022. The Mumbaikar - who has been batting in a league of his own - took just 28 innings to get to this landmark. He now has 1026* runs in T20Is.

The 34-year-old is now the second batter to aggregate 1000+ T20I runs in a calendar year after Pakistan's Mohammed Rizwan. Yadav - who displaced Rizwas as the number one-ranked batter in T20Is - had amassed 1326 runs in 2021 in the shortest format of the game in internationals. He has hit 59 maximums so far in 2022.

Yadav - who walked into the middle in the 13th over of the innings - continued his superlative form and got his half-century off just 23 balls. It was his third half-century of the tournament and fourth fastest fifty for India in T20Is.

In his knock of 61* off 25 balls, Yadav smashed six boundaries and four maximums and guided India to an imposing total. Yadav - who is also hailed as Mr 360 degree - played some outrageous shots and scored at a strike rate of 244. He improvised and agricultured several shots in his innings and put the cricketing fraternity in awe.

Suryakumar Yadav in this T20 World Cup: 15 (10), 51* (25), 68 (40), 30 (16), 61* (25), 14 (10).

Yadav (239 in 6 innings) ended up as the third-highest run-scorer after Virat Kohli (296 in in 6 innings) and Max ODowd (Netherlands, 242 runs in 8 innings).

With this, he was hailed as one of the most reliable middle-order batters in the world in this format at the moment.