Suryakumar Yadav smashes a 152-ball 249 in the Police Invitation Shield Final

Indian batter Suryakumar Yadav, on Thursday, December 23, smashed 249 runs off 152 balls in the final of the Police Invitation Shield. Playing for his club Parsee Gymkhana against Payyade SC, he smacked 37 fours and five sixes as his team racked up a mammoth score of 524 for the loss of nine wickets on Day One.

The 31-year-old racked up his century between lunch and team against a bowling attack, comprising of the likes of Royston Dias, Pardeep Sahu, Dhrumil Matkar, Deepak Shetty, Atif Attarwala, among others. The right-hander warmed-up decently before India’s ODI series against South Africa that starts next month.

“When I came to bat after lunch, I looked to attack, play my natural game. Since the ground is small, I was getting boundaries a bit easily once I found the gaps. I only came to know about my double-century when my teammates applauded me. My aim was that we score so many runs on Day One that they’re out of the game already,” Yadav told TOI.

This is how I will continue to bat, says Suryakumar Yadav

Yadav played a match-winning hand against New Zealand in the opening T20I at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur. But since then, he has had to jostle a wee bit for form. He got two low scores versus the Black Caps and had a rough time in the Vijay Hazare Trophy as well.

Mumbai have already been knocked out of the league and Yadav managed scores of 14, 8, 49 and 4 in the tournament. The right-hander talked about being attacking, but also put emphasis on taking calculative risks.

“In Vijay Hazare, I was batting in my natural, positive aggressive style, which has always reaped so much success for me, there too. I was out while playing my shots, but they weren’t rash, lazy shots.

“This is how I will continue to bat, because if I’m doing well in 7-8 innings out of 10, then why should I think so deeply about the two times I got out while playing an attacking shot? This is the approach at the crease which has helped me play for club, Mumbai and India,” he added.