Legendary Australian cricketer Ricky Ponting has called India middle-order batter Suryakumar Yadav a trailblazer, who could inspire a new breed of players to emulate his style of play and take T20 cricket to "another level" globally.

Suryakumar, 32, was recently named the ICC Men's T20I Cricketer of the Year after he became only the second batter in the world to score 1000-plus runs in a calendar year in the shortest format of the game.