It was a special day for Suryakumar Yadav on Wednesday (November 2) as he ascended to the No. 1 position in the ICC men’s T20I batters ranking, replacing Pakistan wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan. Suryakumar has been just sensational in the T20I format for India, scoring almost 1,000 runs in the format in this calendar year.


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The Mumbai Indians batter celebrated the occasion with a brilliant 30 off 16 balls against Bangladesh in their Super 12 match of the T20 World Cup 2022 in Adelaide. Suryakumar also picked up a couple of brilliant outfield catches as India managed to pip Bangladesh by five runs (DLS method) in a rain-hit clash.


However, it was Suryakumar’s incredible patriotic gesture in the game against Bangladesh which is taking social media by storm. Before the start of the 13th over, SKY pointed to the ‘India’ written on his jersey and urged fans to start chanting it. He also put his hands on his ears, making a gesture that he still could not hear. The video of that moment was shared by ICC with the caption: “Indian and proud”.



Yadav’s 51 not out off 25 balls against the Netherlands in Sydney and a gallant 68 off 40 against South Africa in Perth have helped him overtake New Zealand’s Devon Conway and Pakistan’s Mohammad Rizwan, who had held the top spot since September 4 this year. Yadav is the 23rd player to top the T20I batting rankings and only the second Indian to reach No. 1 in T20 cricket after Virat Kohli, who spent 1,013 days at the top in different periods from September 2014 to December 2017. Yadav’s tally of 863 rating points is also the second best by an Indian, the highest being Kohli’s tally of 897 in September 2014.


New Zealand’s Glenn Phillips has moved up five slots to reach a career-best seventh position after scores of 104 against Sri Lanka and 62 against England, while South Africa’s Rilee Rossouw is another one to enter the top 10 after scoring 109 against Bangladesh, moving up 17 slots to a career-best eighth position, according to ICC.


(with IANS inputs)