"Suryakumar Yadav is the only player like that in your team" - Aakash Chopra lauds Nicholas Pooran's destructive knock in 2nd IND-WI T20I
Aakash Chopra has lauded Nicholas Pooran for playing a match-winning knock in the second T20I between India and the West Indies and pointed out that very few players in world cricket are as destructive as him.
The Men in Blue set the Windies a 153-run target after opting to bat first in Providence, Guyana, on Sunday, August 6. Pooran then smoked a 40-ball 67 as the hosts eked out a two-wicket win with seven deliveries to spare to take a 2-0 lead in the five-match series.
In a video shared on his YouTube channel, Chopra picked Pooran as his Player of the Match and opined that the Indian team might be slightly envious as Suryakumar Yadav is the only such destructive batter in their mix. He elaborated:
"The match got settled in the second innings when Nicholas Pooran came. His name is Nicky P and he is my Player of the Match. The form he is in and to maintain that form with this tempo, it just speaks volumes that this player is extremely special."
The former Indian opener added:
"You also feel slightly envious because Suryakumar Yadav is the only player like that in your team, who was maintaining such a form and batting like this. Everyone else, whenever they play, they play well, but very few players in the world have this kind of destructive mode. Nicholas Pooran, at this point in time, is one of the best."
Pooran, who has a career T20I strike rate of 131.84, has been in breathtaking form lately. The left-handed wicketkeeper-batter smoked an unbeaten 137 off 55 deliveries to help MI New York chase down a 184-run target in just 16 overs in the Major League Cricket final before he joined the Windies team for the ongoing T20I series.
"You generally don't see variations in a T20 knock" - Aakash Chopra on Nicholas Pooran pacing his innings brilliantly
Aakash Chopra praised Nicholas Pooran for playing as per the demands of the situation. He explained:
"You generally don't see variations in a T20 knock, that you hit as well, then you take singles and then you pick it up again. You see this a lot in ODIs, you may start strong, then slow down a little, and then gather pace. So you see those curves but in T20s, the graph mostly goes upwards but that's not the case with Nicky P."
The reputed commentator added that the former West Indies skipper bailed his team out of a difficult situation. He observed:
"When he came, the team was struggling a lot, two wickets had fallen for two runs - Brandon King and Johnson Charles had been dismissed and the team was stuck. Then Kyle Mayers got out but this guy hit at the start and then accumulated runs one by one. He is very good."
Pooran walked out to bat when the West Indies were precariously placed at 2/2. His belligerent hitting helped the hosts reach a comfortable 126/4 in the 14th over, before his dismissal and a few quick wickets thereafter let India back into the game. However, Akeal Hosein and Alzarri Joseph strung together an unbroken 26-run ninth-wicket partnership to take their team across the line.