NEW DELHI: The flamboyant Suryakumar Yadav is set to lead India in a four-match T20I series in South Africa starting November 8.
The Indian T20I captain has four hundreds to his credit in the shortest format of the game and the last century that he had smashed, came against the Proteas on India’s last T20I tour to South Africa in December 2023.
In the two T20Is that he has played in South Africa, Suryakumar has scored 156 runs at an average of 78 and a strike rate of 169.56.The first T20I at Durban was abandoned without a ball bowled due to rain and India lost the rain-interrupted second T20I at Gqeberha by 5 wickets via the DLS method even though Suryakumar scored a 36-ball 56-run knock with the help of 3 sixes and 5 fours.
In the third and last T20I of the series at Johannesburg, India were put into bat by South Africa and leading from the front as captain, Suryakumar reached his fifty off 32 balls and his fourth T20I hundred off just 55 balls.
Batting at No. 4, Suryakumar’s blazing knock was studded with 8 sixes and 7 fours and powered India to 201/7 in their 20 overs.
Kuldeep Yadav then took 5/17 as South Africa were bundled out for just 95 in 13.5 overs to enable India to draw the series 1-1.
The South Africa tour was not originally part of India’s schedule but was recently arranged following discussions between the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and Cricket South Africa (CSA).
The T20I series will be played across four venues: Durban, Gqeberha, Centurion, and Johannesburg, with matches scheduled for November 8, 10, 13, and 15.
India T20I squad for South Africa series: Suryakumar Yadav (C), Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson (WK), Rinku Singh, Tilak Varma, Jitesh Sharma (WK), Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Ramandeep Singh, Varun Chakaravarthy, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Avesh Khan, Yash Dayal