India batsman Suryakumar Yadav smashed 249 off just 159 deliveries and strengthened his claim to get a berth in the ODI squad for the South Africa tour. On Thursday (December 23), the 31-year old batter played the blistering innings in the final of the Police Invitation Shield.
Playing for club team Parsee Gymkhana against Payyade SC, Yadav smashed 37 fours and five sixes as his team registered a huge total of 524 for the loss of nine wickets on Day One.
In his innings, Suryakumar played two big partnerships. First one was with Aditya Tare in which he added 124 runs for the fourth wicket. After this, he scored a big partnership of 209 runs with Sachin Yadav for the 5th wicket. Bowler Atif Attarwala picked up the crucial wicket of Yadav as the Mumbai-born middle order batter was eventually caught out.
Crucial knocks against New Zealand
Yadav played a match-winning knock against New Zealand in the opening T20I at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur. But since then, he had to struggle for form. He played two poor innings against the Kiwis and had a bad patch in the Vijay Hazare Trophy as well.
Mumbai were knocked out of the Vijay Hazare Trophy and Yadav managed scores of 14, 8, 49 and 4 in the tournament.
India will play a three- match Test series against South Africa from December 26 under the captaincy of Virat Kohli. After this, there is also a three-match ODI series between the two teams where India will play under the newly-appointed skipper of white-ball cricket Rohit Sharma and an innings like this would surely make Yadav's claim for ODI spot more concrete.
