Speaking of the performance of Suryakumar Yadav in Afghanistan’s Super Eight match against them in the T20 World Cup 2024, Kumble said that he thinks Suryakumar’s innings really put the Afghan bowlers under severe pressure.
He scored 53 runs off 28 balls at a strike rate of 189.29.His knock had 5 boundaries and 3 sixes, which demonstrated his aggressive batting style. Nevertheless, Fazalhaq Farooqi removed him in the seventeenth over to curtail his knock.
This is what Kumble had to say about Suryakumar’s performance in an interview with ESPNCricinfo TimeOut show, “Playing like this means India can get some power at number four from someone.”
“It gives India the kind of power and stroke play that you need at someone who’s batting at number four. It certainly puts pressure on the opposition bowlers because it’s not easy to control a Surya in this kind of form. You don’t know where to bowl, wherever you bowl the field is sort of you find it hard to stop him from scoring boundaries. So yeah it certainly augurs well. First game of the Super 8s and you have Surya coming back into this kind of form,” said Kumble as quoted by ESPNcricinfo.
India did win their match after winning toss and opting for bat first. Despite being shaky at one stage with runs reading only as90/4 , a vital partnership between Hardik Pandya (32 off 24) and Suryakumar (60) helped India score a total of 181/8 in its allotted overs.
Rashid Khan led Afghanistan’s bowling attack with three wickets while Fazalhaq Farooqi took three wickets too.
However, Afghanistan lost wickets at regular intervals and their chase of 182 runs never really took off. Except for Azmatullah Omarzai, who scored 26 off 20 balls (two fours and a six), no other batter managed to get past the 20-run mark.
The Indian bowling trio of Bumrah (3/7), Arshdeep (3/36), and Kuldeep Yadav (2/32) managed to contain the Afghan batters, ending their innings at only 134 runs in twenty overs.
Suryakumar Yadav was declared the “Player of the Match” for his vital contribution with the bat.