Suryakumar Yadav’s swat-flick against Josh Hazlewood is a shot all his own and bends cricketing logic to his whims | Cricket News
Josh Hazlewood had Suryakumar Yadav tied up in knots. A short delivery had the India captain contorting his body to avoid it. A back-of-length straightener had beaten him neck and crop. But the third ball he faced in the first T20I, Surya took matters into his own hands. He shuffled across to a delivery that landed a fraction outside off-stump. The front foot moved a smudge across and the back leg dragged back correspondingly to create the base. The movement is antithetical to orthodox cricketing ideals, but in Surya’s world, it’s the most normal manoeuvre. The head is still, the eyes are fixed on the ball, the brain could be computing the angles and spaces in the field, dissected minutely as the ball enters his arc. As is often the case with Surya, everything happened in both a blur and ultra-slow motion. The upper body got down and up with the movement of the ball, like a snake-charmer enticing his pet cobra, before bat met ball on an incline and scooped it to the vacant …
