Asia Cup: Rohit Sharma surpasses Virat Kohli, becomes India’s second most successful T20I captain

Dubai, Sep. 1 (IANS): Rohit Sharma has surpassed Virat Kohli as India’s second most successful captain in the T20I format after registering a comprehensive 40-run win against Hong Kong in the Asia cup here on Wednesday.

Sharma, who had taken up T20I captaincy after Kohli stepped down, has won 31 matches in the 37 outing while Kohli achieved 30 wins in 50 T20I matches.

Former captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who has helped India win 41 T20I matches under his captaincy from 72 matches, is still on top of the list.

On Wednesday, Suryakumar Yadav’s fireworks in the last seven overs sealed India’s Super Four spot in Asia Cup 2022 with a 40-run win over Hong Kong in a Group A match.

At 94/2 in 13 overs, when KL Rahul’s struggle ended at 36 off 39 balls, Suryakumar walked in and completely changed the complexion of India’s innings. With his drives, slashes, scoops and sweeps apart from audacious wrist play sending the ball all over the park, he remained unbeaten on 68 off 26 balls, hitting six fours and as many sixes. 60 of his 68 runs came off boundaries, scored at a strike-rate of 261.53.

His belligerent stroke-play made other batters in the Indian side look as if they were batting on a very different pitch. While Suryakumar hit 12 boundaries in his 26-ball knock, all other Indian batters managed to hit nine boundaries collectively in 96 balls.

Suryakumar also shared a 98-run stand off just 42 balls with Virat Kohli, who made 59 in 44 balls, hitting four and three sixes in his 31st T20I fifty and brought out some shots in the end as India fetched 78 runs in the last five overs to score a daunting 192-2, something which was a far possibility at the half-way mark score of 70-1.

Asked to review the match, Rohit was pleased with the batting show, especially in the back end of the innings. But he felt that bowling could have been better.

Spinners Yuzvendra Chahal and Ravindra Jadeja conceded just 48 runs overall to make up for the 97 runs leaked collectively by young pacers Avesh Khan and Arshdeep Singh to reduce Hong Kong to 152-5 in their 20 overs.

“We batted pretty well to start with, got to a very good score. Came out and bowled reasonably well, we could have done slightly better with the ball.”