'One of the few who can go 360 degrees': Shastri lavishes praise on SKY ahead of IND vs BAN showdown

Suryakumar Yadav (Pic: AFP)

Ahead of the clash between India and Bangladesh in the Super 8s of the T20 World Cup 2024, former head coach of Men in Blue, Ravi Shastri heaped praise on star batter Suryakumar Yadav for his magnificent performance against Afghanistan in the previous match.

Suryakumar scored 53 runs from 28 balls at a strike rate of 189.29 against Afghanistan on Thursday. He slammed 5 fours and 3 sixes during his time on the crease. The right-handed batter's knock came to an end in the 17th over after Fazalhaq Farooqi removed him from the crease.

India are coming into this match after beating Afghanistan by 47 runs in their previous Super Eight match. On the other hand, Bangladesh conceded a 28-run defeat in their first Super Eight match of the marquee event.

As per a video posted by ICC on Instagram, Shastri said, "He's one of the few who can go 360 degrees and hit parts of the ground that aren't easy to hit. Much like AB de Villiers, he hits balls into unusual positions and confuses a lot of the bowlers. He's a terrific player. It's his ability to out-think the bowler. He pre-empts, he's very intuitive and he backs that challenge when he's looking to guess right. And what makes him dangerous is his ability to improvise and out-think the bowler."

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"He gets into positions where he makes the bowlers bowl at him and that's what makes him special. There's one thing with Surya Kumar Yadav, you know, he takes very little time to get going and if you see strike rates, you know, within 20 balls he's striking at over 200 most of the time," the former cricketer added

India will be aiming to end India's drought for an ICC trophy since 2013's Champions Trophy and also win their first T20 WC since 2007's inaugural edition in South Africa.

The Men in Blue displayed a stupendous performance in the group stage of the T20 World Cup 2024 and finished at the top of the Group A table with seven points.

India Squad: Rohit Sharma (C), Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant (WK), Suryakumar Yadav, Shivam Dube, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Yuzvendra Chahal, Sanju Samson, Yashasvi Jaiswal.

Bangladesh Squad: Tanzid Hasan, Litton Das (WK), Najmul Hossain Shanto (C), Towhid Hridoy, Shakib Al Hasan, Mahmudullah, Rishad Hossain, Mahedi Hasan, Taskin Ahmed, Tanzim Hasan Sakib, Mustafizur Rahman, Jaker Ali, Tanvir Islam, Shoriful Islam, Soumya Sarkar

(With agency inputs)