Suryakumar Yadav celebrated his call-up to the Indian T20 squad in style as the right-handed batsman played a quickfire knock in the Vijay Hazare Trophy on Sunday. In the match played against Delhi at Jaipuria Vidyalaya Ground at Jaipur, Suryakumar Yadav scored 50 runs off just 33 balls with the help of six 4s and two 6s.
In the match, Suryakumar shared a crucial partnership of 110 runs with Prithvi Shaw as Mumbai defeated Delhi by seven wickets on Sunday. Shaw remained unbeaten on 105 as Mumbai chased a target of 212 with seven wickets in hand and 109 balls to spare.
Earlier in the day, all-rounder Rahul Tewatia on Sunday also lit up the Vijay Hazare Trophy with his quickfire 73-run knock. Playing for Haryana, Tewatia smashed 73 runs off just 39 balls with the help of four 4s and six 6s against Chandigarh at the Videcon Academy Ground in Kolkata. With the help of this knock, Haryana managed to post 299/9 on the board in the allotted fifty overs.
The All-India Senior Selection Committee met on Saturday to pick the squad for the upcoming five-match T20I series against England, to be played at the Sardar Patel Stadium, Motera in Ahmedabad.
The trio—Suryakumar, Ishan, and Tewatia—have benefitted from their performances in the last edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). Kishan had topped the chart for Mumbai Indians by accumulating 516 runs in 14 games including four fifties while Yadav had scored 480 runs in 16 games for the champion side.
Whereas, all-rounder Tewatia had amassed 255 runs and scalped 10 wickets in 14 games for Rajasthan Royals. Also, Kishan’s 173-run knock had helped Jharkhand to post the highest team score in the history of the Vijay Hazare Trophy. The side had achieved the feat in the match against Madhya Pradesh in Indore. Kishan-led Jharkhand had posted a total of 422/9 in the allotted fifty overs.
Pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar is also returning to the side while Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami have been rested for the five-match T20I series.
India’s T20I squad: Virat Kohli (Capt), Rohit Sharma (vc), KL Rahul, Shikhar Dhawan, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik, Rishabh Pant (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Y Chahal, Varun Chakravarthy, Axar Patel, W Sundar, R Tewatia, T Natarajan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Navdeep, Shardul Thakur.
The first T20I will be played on March 12 after the ongoing Test series concludes. Both the teams are gearing up for the third Test which will begin on 24 February.
