Fleming: 'Very hard to find an area of weakness' in Suryakumar's game
Faf du Plessis, meanwhile, has hailed the India batter for his composure and his ability to 'go through the gears'
ESPNcricinfo staff
30-Oct-2022
Suryakumar Yadav's T20 game is at a stage where "it's difficult to find an area of weakness", former New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming has said. Fleming was speaking on the ESPNcricinfo show T20 Time:Out after Suryakumar scored his second successive half-century of the T20 World Cup to help a struggling India post a total of 133 for 9 against South Africa.
On a bouncy Perth pitch where the rest of India's batters combined to score 57 runs off 80 balls, Suryakumar scored 68 off 40. Fleming broke down the technique that allows Suryakumar to manipulate different lengths and access different areas of the field.
"He just has a really positive mindset," Fleming said. "And he has a very open and aggressive stance which allows him to play a lot of unusual areas. So he's sort of created a technique which bowlers are finding it hard to find the right lengths [against] because if they're full he'll hit all the way over cover or around; if they're fractionally short he'll go over third man and point.
"And anything straight, he's very good with the short ball. So he's developed a technique that's very hard to find an area of weakness [in]."
On the same show, former South Africa captain Faf du Plessis also weighed in on Suryakumar's game, noting in particular his temperament, and his ability to assess when to take calculated risks.
"His skillset is so high that as a bowler you don't feel like you can tie him down to certain areas. He's got all the different shots, scores in all the different areas," du Plessis said.
"The thing that stands out for me with him is his composure. With a guy who has got so many shots I almost never see him be frantic and feel rushed. He's just got this calmness about him.
"He knows when to pull that trigger, go through the gears, and he just always looks calm. He's just a fantastic T20 player to watch. He's the perfect guy that as a youngster you look at how you go through different gears at different stages of the game."