India T20I skipper Suryakumar Yadav celebrates his five-year anniversary in international cricket on Saturday. SKY, as he is fondly called by his fans, made his international debut in a T20I against England on 14 March, 2021 in Ahmedabad.
Since then, he has played a total of 37 ODIs, 113 T20Is and just one Test, scoring 773, 3272 and eight runs in each of these three formats respectively. Suryakumar Yadav recently led India to their third T20 World Cup title, beating New Zealand by 96 runs in the final in Ahmedabad.
The Mumbai-born cricketer has led the Men in Blue in 52 T20Is, winning 40 of these matches while losing just eight matches. As the India T20I captain, he boasts of a win percentage of 76.94.
With the 35-year-old completing half a decade in international cricket, we now take a look at his major records and milestones.
Major records and milestones of Suryakumar Yadav in international cricket
- Suryakumar Yadav is second in the list of most centuries by an Indian in T20Is. He has scored four T20I centuries so far, which is only one less than Rohit Sharma, who tops the list with five centuries.
- Suryakumar Yadav is the first player to have score T20I centuries in four different countries. He has scored a T20I century each in India, South Africa, England and New Zealand.
- In 2022, the right-handed batter became the first Indian to score more than 1000 T20I runs in a calendar year. SKY scored 1164 runs from 31 T20Is in 2022.
- During India's T20 World Cup match against USA in February, Suryakumar Yadav became the fastest batter to score 500 runs in tournament history in terms of balls faced. He took 321 deliveries, which is two lesser deliveries than what former Pakistan all-rounder Shahid Afridi took (323 balls).
- In October 2024, SKY became the second-fastest batter to score 2500 T20I runs. He took 71 innings to reach the milestone, which was three more than what Virat Kohli (68 innings) had taken.
- Suryakumar Yadav is third in the list of most Player of the Match awards in T20Is. He has 17 POTM awards, which is lesser than Malaysia's Virandeep Singh (22) and Zimbabwe's Sikandar Raza (21). However, his 17 POTM awards are more than Virat Kohli (16) and Rohit Sharma (14), both of whom retired from T20Is after the 2024 T20 World Cup.
- It was also during the T20 World Cup match against USA when Suryakumar Yadav became the fourth Indian captain to score 1000 T20I runs. Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni are the other captains to do so.