Touching 'SKY-line'– Suryakumar is now India's highest run-scorer in T20Is in single calendar year

New Delhi: Suryakumar Yadav's status as India's best T20I batter in recent times has been reaffirmed as he became the highest scorer in a single calender year with 732 runs, surpassing Shikhar Dhawan's 689 back in 2018.

Suryakumar, who scored one of his finest T20I half-centuries against South Africa on a seaming track in Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday, is only 24 runs short of completing 1000 runs in the format.

His strike-rate in 2022 is a whopping 180.29, while his career strike-rate is a staggering 173.35 across 32 games. He has already hit 57 sixes and 88 boundaries in his career so far. Coming onto bat at No.4 position in the first T20I against South Africa with India being reduced to 17/2 in the seventh over, Suryakumar hit two sixes off his first three balls to give the innings a change in momentum after a slow start.

He remained unbeaten on 50 off 33 balls as India scaled the target with more than three overs to spare and eight wickets in hand.

With the two sixes early in the innings, Suryakumar also went past Pakistan's Mohammad Rizwan to record the most sixes in any calendar year in T20Is. Rizwan held the record for his 42 sixes in 2021 with Martin Guptill also smashing 41 sixes in the same year.

Suryakumar has taken his tally of sixes to 45 in 2022 already, a record in all T20Is, with three more months to widen the gap with Rizwan.

While Rizwan took 26 innings to hit 42 sixes, Suryakumar has broken the record batting five times fewer.

Suryakumar is up to second position in the latest MRF Tyres ICC Men's T20I Player Rankings with 801 rating points after his half-century in the third and final T20I against Australia in Hyderabad.