South Africa’s senior middle-order batter David Miller highlighted the challenges of bowling to Suryakumar Yadav, who scored a 55-ball century in the third T20I which India won by 106 runs, saying it is difficult to set a field for a batter who plays shots all around the park.
Suryakumar smashed a delightful century off just 55 balls, smashing seven fours and eight sixes at a strike-rate of 178.57. With his fourth T20I century, Suryakumar, the top-ranked batter in the format, went level with Rohit Sharma and Glenn Maxwell for most centuries by a male batter in shorter format of the game.
“He’s a special player, and it was a really, really good knock. The guys executed more often than not, and he came out and still managed to hit those fours and sixes. I think he just manages to hit all around the ground. It was difficult to kind of set a field to him,” said Miller in the post-match press conference.
Suryakumar was on 27 runs off 25 balls at one point, before taking the attack to South Africa in the second half of the innings by smashing 73 runs in next 31 balls. The onslaught began in the 13th over when he smashed three sixes and a four off Andile Phehlukwayo, till he reached his century in the final over, as India made 201/7.
“So, you kind of try to double-bluff at times and go outside of a normal plan, and so I think anyone that can lap, scoop, play straight, and hit you over cow corner and over cover is difficult to bowl to,” added Miller.
In reply, South Africa were bowled out for just 95 in 13.5 overs at the Wanderers, a batting performance which Miller called as disappointing. “We are good enough to play better than that. It was a par score. It was a really good wicket, but then things changed.”
“It wasn’t the same wicket as in the first innings. It is difficult to go at 10 an over when the ball is keeping low, but we should have been good enough to adapt and we weren’t,” concluded Miller, as India and South Africa will now play the ODI series opener at the same venue on Sunday.
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