Mumbai, Feb 7 Captain Suryakumar Yadav scored a fighting half-century against the USA in India's first match in Group A in the ICC Men's T20 World Cup, keeping alive the defending champion's hopes of posting a fighting total.
Yadav came into the middle after opener Ishan Kishan had joined his partner Abhishek Sharma in the dugout with the score 45/2 in the sixth over. He saw the team slump to 46/4 at the end of the power play as Tilak Varma and Shivam Dube departed in quick succession.
The 36-year-old explosive batter, playing at his home ground Wankhede Stadium, raced to his fifth off 36 balls, hitting seven boundaries and one six.
In between, he saw Rinku Singh and Hardik Pandya return to the pavilion without adding many runs to the scoreboard. But Suryakumar did not lose hope and continued to fight, hitting boundaries whenever possible. He raised 41 runs for the seventh wicket partnership with Axar Patel as they blasted 21 runs off the sixth over bowled by Saurabh Netravalkar.
Suryakumar Yadav put on display his usual 360-degree shot-making, hitting a four and six off Netravalkar and another four and six in the same over off Shadley van Schalkwyk, the bowler who troubled India by claiming 4-25 in his first spell.
Yadav's brilliant knock kept alive India's hopes of reaching a defendable total in their opening match and avoid an upset.
In the process, Suryakumar Yadav also reached 1000 runs as a T20 captain, thus adding to his unique records in the shortest format of the game.
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