Suryakumar Yadav, the Indian T20I captain, hailed the youngster Riyan Parag after his all-round performance in India’s 43-run win over Sri Lanka in the first T20I of the three-match series. The 33-year-old remarked that the batting all-rounder, Riyan Parag, has the “X factor” in him while hyping up his skills with the ball in hand.
Notably, Riyan Parag scored 7 off 6 with the bat in the latter stages of the Indian batting innings before picking up three wickets in eight balls to clean up the Sri Lankan tail. After putting up a massive total of 213/7 on the board, the Indian cricket team managed to bundle out Sri Lanka for just 170 runs in the final over of their batting innings.
BCCI shared a video of Suryakumar Yadav from the post-match on their official X account, where he spoke about Riyan Parag, who is one of the newest members of the Indian cricket team in the T20I format. He said, “Ye Riyan Parag special hi ho sakta hai (Riyan Parag is likely to be special) because I have seen him before, even bowling in the IPL, in the nets. I even said at the press conference, he has the X factor.”
Agar apna skill nahi chala, toh baaki log sambhal lenge: Suryakumar Yadav
Apart from talking about Riyan Parag, the Indian captain opined on how the team approaches batting in the T20I format and said, “According to the situation, I set the tempo from the batting point of view. There is so much skill in this batting line-up that I know ke agar apna skill nahi chala, toh baaki log sambhal lenge (If my skill doesn’t work, then others will take care of the situation).”
Suryakumar Yadav also remarked that he doesn’t want to be a captain, but a leader of the Indian cricket team in the T20I format.