In the most current MRF Tyres ICC Men’s T20I Player Rankings, Suryakumar, who just moved up to second place, hit an unbroken fifty and added 93 runs with KL Rahul to help India defeat South Africa’s meagre target of 107 with 20 balls remaining.
India was in trouble when the 32-year-old came in at No. 4, having dropped to 17/2 in the seventh over after losing the skipper Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. After a sluggish start, Yadav smashed two sixes off his first three balls to shift India’s momentum.
Yadav established two records with his undefeated innings of 50 not out off 33 balls. He first set a new T20Is record for the most sixes in a single calendar year. With the two sixes he hit early in the innings, Yadav surpassed Mohammad Rizwan of Pakistan’s record of 42 sixes set in 2021.
Yadav hit a total of three sixes on Wednesday night (September 28), bringing his 2022 total to 45 and giving him three more months to close the gap on Rizwan. Suryakumar Yadav broke the record in just 21 innings, whereas it took Rizwan 26 innings to hit 42 sixes.
Later in the innings, Yadav also surpassed Shikhar Dhawan’s score of 689 runs from 2018 to set a new record for the most runs scored by an Indian in T20Is. Yadav has currently scored 732 runs in the shortest format in 2022, averaging over 40 runs per game with a strike rate of above 180.
Here is a look at the top 10 players with most sixes in T20I in a calendar year
| Player | Country | Sixes | Innings | Year |
| Suryakumar Yadav | India | 45 | 21 | 2022 |
| Mohammad Rizwan | Pakistan | 42 | 26 | 2021 |
| Martin Guptill | New Zealand | 41 | 18 | 2021 |
| Tony Ura | Papua New Guinea | 39 | 11 | 2022 |
| Muhammad Waseem | UAE | 38 | 13 | 2022 |
| Evin Lewis | West Indies | 37 | 18 | 2021 |
| Kevin O’Brien | Ireland | 36 | 23 | 2019 |
| Rovman Powell | West Indies | 36 | 16 | 2022 |
| Colin Munro | New Zealand | 35 | 12 | 2018 |
| George Munsey | Scotland | 34 | 15 | 2019 |
Later in the innings, Yadav also surpassed Shikhar Dhawan’s score of 689 runs from 2018 to set a new record for the most runs scored by an Indian in T20Is. Yadav has currently scored 732 runs in the shortest format in 2022, averaging over 40 runs per game with a strike rate of above 180.
Here is a look at the top 10 most runs scored in T20I by Indian in a calendar year
| Player | Runs | Average | Strike Rate | Year |
| Suryakumar Yadav | 732 | 40.66 | 180.29 | 2022 |
| Shikhar Dhawan | 689 | 40.52 | 147.22 | 2021 |
| Virat Kohli | 641 | 106.83 | 140.26 | 2021 |
| Rohit Sharma | 590 | 36.87 | 147.5 | 2022 |
| Rohit Sharma | 497 | 29.23 | 131.48 | 2022 |
| Rohit Sharma | 497 | 26.15 | 146.17 | 2021 |
| Virat Kohli | 471 | 39.25 | 132.67 | 2019 |
| Virat Kohli | 466 | 77.66 | 147.93 | 2022 |
| Shreyas Iyer | 449 | 44.90 | 142.99 | 2018 |
| Hardik Pandya | 436 | 36.33 | 151.38 | 2019 |
