Suryakumar Yadav: 2024 Final Catch "Changed My Life Completely"

Yadav grabbed a match-winning catch in the 2024 T20 World Cup final. It was a stunning boundary-rope grab to dismiss Miller in the final over, which proved to be the last hurdle in India's way to win the tournament.

Running from long-off, he caught the ball, threw it up as his momentum carried him over the boundary, and stepped back in to complete.

"It has been a great journey. Criticism is a part of life. You can't run away from it. Because if you do good, people will say good, if you don't do good, people won't say good. It's a simple thing; you need to understand this. And this is a part of a sportsman's life. But the journey of 23, then we went to 2024, we won there in Barbados. That catch changed my life completely. Because that was a moment of the tournament. And then after that, when I started leading this amazing team, it was a very special feeling because I knew that we were going to play the World Cup in India after two years. And no team has ever won in India. And when you play the T20 World Cup or any tournament in India, there is a different vibe, a different excitement," he said.

"So I started telling everyone when we started playing bilaterally that you should be excited that when you play in India in the T20 World Cup, people will have expectations from you, they will talk to you, and you will enjoy it more. So with that excitement, we started that journey. And the way we played in the T20 World Cup, the way we wanted to play, and the way we won this trophy, that is the part of that excitement. So it has been a very beautiful journey. And hopefully, this continues," Suryakumar Yadav told the reporters after the match.

A dominant batting show by the top-order of Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson, and Ishan Kishan, and later fiery spells by Jasprit Bumrah and Axar Patel, helped Team India make history, beating New Zealand by 96 runs at Ahmedabad's Narendra Modi Stadium on Sunday.

Yadav also said India's approach was to win the World Cup on home turf, breaking the "no home team wins" curse.

He emphasised sticking to their process and routine, which paid off. Yadav felt the team clicked after the Zimbabwe match in Chennai, and their confidence soared after a strong game in Eden Gardens against the West Indies.

"When we started the tournament, we thought we wanted to win the World Cup in India. Because many people were saying that no home team has ever won the World Cup. There has never been a back-to-back. So when you go to a tournament, you think that you want to win the tournament. But at the same time, it is important to know the process and routine of how you will win it. So I told everyone that we will play like we have been playing for the last 1-1.5 years. We will try to play the ICC tournament as well. And when we played in Chennai against Zimbabwe, I felt that we had started playing a different brand of cricket. I understood a little bit about how to play going forward. And when I played a virtual knock-out game in Eden Gardens, I felt that there was a different level of confidence in this team. Because everyone was enjoying cricket. But we started at the turning point, the peak point, we started then," he added.

India became the first team to win the T20 WC title at home, the first team to win it back-to-back, and the first team to win the three T20 WC crowns.

- ANI