Cricket News

‘I tried to emulate Yuvraj Singh’s feat’- Ryan Burl opens up on hitting 34 runs in 1 over

The last month has been an uptick  for the Zimbabwe Cricket Team. They defeated Papua New Guinea by 27 runs in the first semifinal of the T20 World Cup Qualifiers at home that helped them book their place in the mega event for the sixth time. But most importantly, the 2022 T20 World Cup in Australia will mark Zimbabwe’s first appearance in a mega event since 2016.

Adding to this, The Chevrons, as they are called, defeated Bangladesh 2-1 to win their first-ever bilateral T20I series over a higher-ranked side. Later, they won the ODI series against them 2-1, cheered on by a full house of passionate supporters.

Left-handed middle-order batter Ryan Burl was one of the main reasons for Zimbabwe’s T20I series win over Bangladesh at Harare. From 76/6, Burl smashed 34 runs off Nasum Ahmed in the 15th over, equaling the record for the second-most runs hit in an over in T20I cricket.

He made 54 and shared a crucial stand of 79 with Luke Jongwe to set the tone for a memorable victory for Zimbabwe. Burl, who had missed the 2016 series against India, due to a tear in his ACL Anterior Cruciate Ligament in the left knee, is excited about the prospect of playing against the KL Rahul-led side.

India are coming into the series without senior players such as Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah to name a few. However, Burl believes that India still look a formidable unit, given the amount of depth they have in Indian cricket.

“To be honest, it’s quite difficult to pinpoint just one or two guys. Just the whole team in general, everyone knows the depth which the Indian cricket team has. If you have a couple of those big guys missing, it means that someone has an opportunity to come in and put their hand up. It’s not to say they are not as good; they might be even better, who knows on a given day. It’s just important that whoever is in the starting eleven, that we understand our match-ups. We then try to combat that and do the best as possible.”

The Zimbabwe cricketer is hopeful of winning the matches and the series against India but accept the fact that it isn’t going to be easy.

“We would like to try and win the series. How we do that, I don’t mind that as long as we get the wins. But it’s India and one of the best teams in the world. They are not going to put up an easy fight; it’s going to be difficult. Hopefully, with our home ground advantage, we can try and pull out a cat out of the hat and put out something special.

Recalling the 34-run over against Bangladesh, Burl said that he was trying to emulate Yuvraj Singh’s feat of 6 sixes in an over.

“There’s obviously the legends like, Sachin Tendulkar, Harbhajan Singh, Yuvraj Singh and a lot of those guys. In my last series against Bangladesh, when I tried to hit the left-arm spinner for 36 in an over, a little bit of flash came when Yuvraj hit Broad for six sixes. I was kind of trying to emulate in that way; he’s obviously a legend.”