Suryakumar Yadav rewrites India’s T20I history, leaves Kohli, Rohit and Yuvraj behind
India's T20I captain Suryakumar Yadav wrapped up the Men in Blues T20 World Cup 2026 journey from the very first game, hitting a superlative match, winning knock against the USA in Mumbai on Saturday. Given the situation when he came to bat, 77 for 6, Suryakumar played a very settled and confident innings of 84 not out, taking his team to a good total of 161 for 9. The run proved quite enough as India bagged a 29, run win at their Group A match opener.
The innings held a value for the future as well as result. Suryakumar was playing his 105th T20I and bagged his 17th Player of the Match award thus surpassing Virat Kohli's tally of 16 awards, which the ex-captain had made in 125 games. By doing this, Suryakumar has become the Indian player with the most PoTM honours in T20I history.
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The knock also quite aptly came at the very right moment for the Indian skipper to be back at his best, as he had been questioned on his contribution lately. Even when everyone was talking about his form loss, Suryakumar was firm in his conviction and claimed that he was just out of runs, not out of form. His pre-World Cup showings were a testament to that statement, as he scored three fifties in five T20I encounters against New Zealand. In fact, in his last five T20I innings, he has hit four fifties.
On the world scale, considering the total number of T20I Player of the Match awards, Suryakumar is now at a tie for the third position. Between 22 such awards in 111 games, Malaysias Virandeep Singh is at the top of the list, followed by Zimbabwe captain Sikandar Raza with 19 in 127 games. Then, Suryakumar and Kohli come next in the list.
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This was also the fourth time that Suryakumar won the Player of the Match award at a T20 World Cup, which makes him second among Indians at the tournament, after Kohli, who has won the award eight times.
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List of cricketers with most PoTMs in T20Is
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Virandeep Singh (Malaysia) – 22 Player of the Match awards in 111 T20Is
Sikandar Raza (Zimbabwe) – 19 Player of the Match awards in 127 T20Is
Suryakumar Yadav (India) – 16 Player of the Match awards in 105 T20Is*
Virat Kohli (India) – 16 Player of the Match awards in 125 T20Is
Sami Sohail (Malawi) – 14 Player of the Match awards in 66 T20Is
Muhammad Waseem (UAE) – 14 Player of the Match awards in 93 T20Is
Mohammad Nabi (Afghanistan) – 14 Player of the Match awards in 148 T20Is
Rohit Sharma (India) – 14 Player of the Match awards in 159 T20Is
Syed Aziz (Malaysia) – 13 Player of the Match awards in 117 T20Is
Shadab Khan (Pakistan) – 13 Player of the Match awards in 118 T20Is
Bilal Zalmai (Austria) – 12 Player of the Match awards in 50 T20Is
Alpesh Ramjani (Uganda) – 12 Player of the Match awards in 65 T20Is
Dinesh Nakrani (Uganda) – 12 Player of the Match awards in 82 T20Is
Mohammad Rizwan (Pakistan) – 12 Player of the Match awards in 106 T20Is
David Warner (Australia) – 12 Player of the Match awards in 110 T20Is
Glenn Maxwell (Australia) – 12 Player of the Match awards in 126 T20Is
Shakib Al Hasan (Bangladesh) – 12 Player of the Match awards in 129 T20Is |
