India T20I captain Suryakumar Yadav's wait for a half-century in international cricket continued as he got dismissed for 32 runs against New Zealand in the first T20I of the five-match series. He did get off to a solid start and played some brilliant shots including his trademark sweep. He appeared to be in the zone and looked set to score big. However, Mitchell Santner clinched his wicket for 32 runs in the 11th over. The wicket brought an end to the 99-run partnership between Suryakumar and Abhishek Sharma.
Former India cricketer Ravichandran Ashwin wasn't completely satisfied with Suryakumar's innings and pointed out how the latter failed to record a half-century. He also gave credit to the 35-year-old for scoring a decent number of runs and for looking in good touch.
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“Actually, it’s monkey off the back. Many people were talking about Suryakumar Yadav’s batting and form. In all honesty, you don’t have to aim for consistency in T20Is. About Surya, I liked one thing today, he got his form, he got those runs, he looked in good touch. But mostly in times from the past, if the batsman is looking for runs and he wants to put the runs on board, they would have looked to get a 50. But Surya did not do that,” Ashwin said on his YouTube channel.
Suryakumar achieves huge T20 milestone
On the other hand, Suryakumar did achieve a massive milestone in T20 cricket with his knock of 32. He has becaome just the fourth Indian player in history to surpass 9000 T20 runs. He so far has 59 fifties and 6 centuries under his name in the format after 347 matches, including an impressive strike-rate of 152.27.
Indians with the most runs in T20 cricket -
1. Virat Kohli - 13,543 runs
2. Rohit Sharma - 12,248 runs
3. Shikhar Dhawan - 9797 runs
4. Suryakumar Yadav - 9007 runs
5. Suresh Raina - 8654 runs
Suryakumar's batting woes in T20Is
Despite the achievement, Suryakumar is yet to record a half-century in T20Is since October, 2024. He had a forgettable 2025 and failed to reach the mark in any of the 21 T20Is that India played during the year. It remains to be seen if he will be able to put this wait to an end in 2026.