Suryakumar Yadav, with his knock of 68 off 26 balls against Hong Kong yesterday in the Asia Cup 2022, achieved something which not even the stalwarts of Indian cricket managed to achieve in a lesser number of games than him.
Suryakumar, in only his 25th T20 international, won the 5th player of the match award for India and beat his nearest competitor Yuvraj Singh by a good margin of 5 games.
If we have a look at the list of the players who have won 5 players of the match awards for India in the minimum no. of T20I games, Virat Kohli, Yuzvendra Chahal, and Rohit Sharma feature in the list apart from Suryakumar Yadav and Yuvraj Singh.
While it took Yuvraj, who has been one of India’s greatest T20I batsmen, a total of 30 games to win 5 players of the match awards, Virat Kohli got there in 32 games. But, after that, there is a huge gap in the total no. of games taken by Chahal and Rohit to win 5 players of the match awards.
Suryakumar Yadav won the Man of the match award for his amazing innings. pic.twitter.com/396rYucqZL
— CricketMAN2 (@ImTanujSingh) August 31, 2022
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Yuzvendra Chahal received his 5th player of the match award in his 60th T20 international, while the current Indian captain Rohit got there in his 70th game.
The no. of players of the match awards is not always a correct parameter to judge the performance of a player because players, who bat lower down the order and only get the chance to play short cameos, don’t generally win a lot of player of the match awards.
The impact of players like Suryakumar Yadav is reflected in the no. of the man of the match awards
Similarly, in the case of bowlers, those bowlers, who bowl a lot of economical overs regularly, but don’t get a lot of wickets, don’t win player-of-the-match awards often enough.
However, the impact of the players, who bat in the top 4 (like Suryakumar Yadav and Virat Kohli) or players who are attacking bowlers and bowl with the new ball, is reflected by the no. of player of the match awards that they win.
