During the recent ICC Review show, Ricky Ponting, the former Australian captain, talked about Suryakumar Yadav and what he brings to Team India in white-ball cricket. He expressed that the Indian team management should stick with SKY as he is the sort of player that can help the team win a World Cup.
Ricky Ponting mentioned the recent form of Suryakumar Yadav in T20 Cricket to drive home his point about why India should stick with him in the big limited-overs tournaments coming up. He said, “Everyone around the world knows what Surya can do in white-ball cricket.”
The former World Cup winner went on to compare SKY with his friend and the late great Australian cricketer Andrew Symonds in terms of how unique his cricketing talent is. Ponting mentioned that “He (Suryakumar Yadav) might be a little bit inconsistent but he is the sort of guy that in big moments can win you something, a bit like, you know, the late great Andrew Symonds did for Australia.”
“When you invest in these guys, you give them an opportunity, if you give them a pretty clear direction, give some clarity around the role that you want them to play, they have got so much talent that they can single-handedly win you games, so that’s definitely the way I look at it for India.”
Ponting elaborated that Team India should play aggressively in their home ICC CWC 2023 and SKY is the perfect option to execute that kind of strategic planning. “I wouldn’t be playing safe, I would be going with match-winning players, I think he (Suryakumar Yadav) is a match-winner.”
When Sanjana Ganesan asked Ricky Ponting about whether or not SKY should bat later on in an ODI inning to replicate his success in T20Is on the ICC Review show, he said, “That’s a possibility, yes. If you think about how dangerous the proposition would be of having Surya and Hardik at the end, in the back end of a 50-over game, it would be pretty entertaining stuff."
