Virat Kohli was “completely blown away” by Suryakumar Yadav’s innings against Hong Kong in Dubai on Wednesday.

Kohli and Surya scored half-centuries during an unbroken partnership of 98 off 42 balls. “SKY played an outstanding knock, a knock that I enjoyed thoroughly from the other end,” Kohli said during a conversation with Surya for bcci.tv.

“I’ve seen so many innings when we play in the IPL (against each other), or that being done to other teams, but this was my first experience of watching very closely.

“I was completely blown away. I honestly believe that the way you played if you can stay in that zone, you can literally change the complexion of the game against any team,” Kohli said.

Kohli was on 33 when Surya joined him in the middle and swept his first two balls for boundaries. “When I was sitting inside, me and Rishabh (Pant) were speaking about how we could take (the) game ahead...,” Surya said.

“When I went in, I tried to just be myself and do what I love doing. It was a really simple plan: taking the first 10 balls, I wanted to hit threefour boundaries and when I got that, I just kept batting.” “At that moment, I knew I needed you there,” Surya said to Kohli.

“That’s why I told you that you just bat from one end, it’ll be easy to cover up because I’ve seen you a lot of times, when you take 30-35 balls, the next 10 balls you bat with a strike rate of 200-250. It was important for me that you stay there so that I bat freely until the 20th over. And the same thing happened. I really enjoyed it.”