T20 World Cup 2024: Suryakumar Yadav Receives Best Fielder Medal From Jay Shah After Final Victory

Suryakumar Yadav bagged the Team India best fielder medal following the team's T20 World Cup 2024 final victory over South Africa at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados on Saturday (June 29) night.

Suryakumar received the coveted 'Best Fielder' award from the BCCI secretary Jay Shah for his magnificent catch to dismiss the dangerous David Miller which turned out to be the decisive moment in the final triumph.

Jay Shah awarded the best fielder medal to Suryakumar Yadav after the T20 World Cup 2024 Final

Fielding coach, who started the innovative practice of awarding the Best Fielder as an extra motivation, made the announcement and hailed that Indian team fielded like a "pack of wolves and didn't leave any stone unturned".

"We talk of rising to the occasion in big games... We just didn't rise but we conquered today," the Indian fielding coach said. "The intensity, the camaraderie, the resilience what we have shown today and also throughout the tournament were nothing sort of extraordinary stuff.

"We fielded like a pack of wolves, as Rahul bhai and Rohit keep saying... Everybody knew their roles but together we hunted every opportunity which came our way leaving no stone unturned," Dilip added and revealed Shah will do the honours of handing over the medal.

"Thank you so much Dilip Sir for giving me this opportunity and collecting this medal from Jay sir," said Surya to a rousing cheer from his teammates.

Suryakumar was the picture perfect of judgement, composure and athleticism as he juggled to take the catch of David Miller with South Africa needing 16 runs from the final over.

Before that equation was 30 runs from as many balls a South Africa bungled in a typical fashion with Hardik Pandya triggering the collapse dismissing a well-set Henrich Klaasen for 52. They went on to lose four wickets for 17 runs to be restricted for 169/8 in pursuit of 177.

Coach Dilip had introduced an award - a medal - to honour the best fielder of the team in every match at last year's ODI World Cup and returned with the tradition again in T20 World Cup 2024.

The best fielder medal has been given to a player, who not only takes splendid catches, but for all the other aspects like executing a run out or saving runs or the glove-work from behind the stumps by the wicketkeeper.

During the T20 World Cup, the likes of Ravi Shastri, Sir Vivian Richards, Yuvraj Singh, Nuwan and Dinesh Karthik have been among the guests to crown the winner, while Mohammed Siraj, Rishabh Pant, Suryakumar Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel have been the recipients.