India captain Suryakumar Yadav etched his name into the history books with a stellar performance against the USA in his team's T20 World Cup 2026 opener at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. With India's backs against the wall, Suryakumar stood tall to deliver a clutch performance and help India deny a huge upset on the opening day of the competition.
SKY's unbeaten 84 off 49 balls helped India put a strong 161/9 on the board after they were once reeling at 77/6 due to the unusual slowness of the Wankhede surface. He made India recover well and then launched a blistering attack on the US bowling attack, which got a bit depleted at the end due to injuries to a couple of bowlers.
While SKY did the job with the bat, the bowlers followed suit as they did not let the American side breathe easy in the chase. The minnows had some moments where they looked to cash in during the chase, but the 161-run target and India's strong bowling attack made them fall short by 29 runs in the end as they were restricted to 132/8.
For his game-changing knock, SKY was adjudged the Player of the Match as he has now shattered a huge Virat Kohli record. SKY, who has been a big match-winner for India, won his 17th Player of the Match award in T20Is, which are now the most by an Indian in the format.
He was previously tied with former skipper Kohli with 16 such honours. However, his saviour act in India's tournament opener saw him bag his 17th award.
Most Player of the Match awards in T20Is for India:
17 Suryakumar Yadav (105 T20Is)
16 Virat Kohli (125)
14 Rohit Sharma (159)
8 Axar Patel (88)
SKY now third in the world
SKY now sits in third spot in the world with the most Man of the Match awards in T20I cricket. He is only behind Malaysia's Virandeep Singh and Zimbabwe's Sikandar Raza on the all-time list and may challenge the two, given the pedigree that he has.
Most Player of the Match awards in T20Is:
1 - Virandeep Singh: 22 in 111 matches
2 - Sikandar Raza: 19 in 127 matches
3 - Suryakumar Yadav: 17 in 105 matches
4 - Virat Kohli: 16 in 125 matches
5 - Sami Sohail: 16 in 66 matches
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