New Delhi: Australia’s great cricketer Ricky Ponting termed India’s middle-order batsman Suryakumar Yadav as a mentor and said that he will inspire the new generation of players to adopt his style of play and take T20 cricket at the international level. can be taken to the ‘second level’. Suryakumar was recently named the ICC T20 International Male Cricketer of the Year. He is the second batsman to add more than 1000 runs in a calendar year in T20.
He scored 1164 runs in 2022 with two centuries and nine fifties, trailing only Pakistan’s Mohammad Rizwan who scored 1326 runs in 2021. Ponting told the ICC (International Cricket Council) on Friday, “I think I have not seen any better player in the game (Suryakumar) in terms of skill and in terms of bringing innovation.”
read this also
He said, “Whatever he does, a lot of players will try to emulate him, which will lead to a whole other level of skill in the T20 format all over the world.” Ponting said, “Someone said this year (2022) during the IPL (Indian Premier League) that there will be some players who will try to do what Suryakumar is doing and it will be great to see.”
Ponting also termed Suryakumar as an innovative cricketer in the shorter format and compared his batting to that of South African white-ball specialist AB de Villiers and former Australian wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist. He said, “He is doing better than any other player at the moment. When we talk about players who can score 360 degrees (all around) then he is a master of it, he is scoring runs behind the wicketkeeper at fine leg which is fantastic. “(agency)