India vs South Africa: Suryakumar Yadav equals Virat Kohli’s T20I record

Suryakumar Yadav continues to be top-choice for India in the T20I format and his stock grew further on Tuesday. In the second T20I against South Africa, and the first to be played, he brought up 2000 T20I runs – becoming the joint-fastest Indian to the milestone.

Suryakumar brought up the 2000th run with a single and reached the figure in 56 innings. It is the same number of innings that Virat Kohli needed to bring up the 2000 run mark. SKY though needed one match less (59) than Kohli (60) to the figure.

The right-handed batter is also the joint-third fastest to 2000 T20I runs, only behind Babar Azam and Mohammed Rizwan, who got to the figure in the 52nd innings.

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However, Suryakumar took the least number of balls to reach the 2000 T20I runs mark. The Indian batter got to landmark in 1164 balls, bettering the record set by Australia’s Aaron Finch, who got there in 1283 balls.

What a start for SKY 🔥

After a sublime cover drive, @surya_14kumar executed his trademark shot for a maximum 🙌

Tune-in to the 2nd #SAvIND T20I
LIVE NOW | Star Sports Network#Cricket pic.twitter.com/Ut8wNoRjsj

— Star Sports (@StarSportsIndia) December 12, 2023

Suryakumar became the No 1-ranked T20I batter in October 2022 and has held on to the top spot ever since. He finished the 2022 season with 1164 T20I runs in 31 matches and has maintained that form this year. He’s lapped up 633 runs from 17 matches at an average of 45.21 and strike rate of 152.89.

For India, the second T20I didn’t get the desired outcome as South Africa won by five-wickets under the DLS method.

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