Suryakumar Yadav is having his second-most productive IPL season: he’s scored 583 runs so far and is likely to break his best season tally of 605 runs from IPL 2023 if MI makes it through the playoffs. Yet, it was in his 13th innings of the season that he finally felt satisfied with a knock.
On Wednesday, in a high-stakes encounter against Delhi Capitals (DC) on a tricky pitch at the Wankhede Stadium, Suryakumar crashed his fourth half-century of the tournament and perhaps his most crucial knock for MI this season. If MI lose this game to DC, then their qualification scenario will involve hoping that Punjab Kings beat DC.
MI were left in an early pickle after being asked to bat first by Faf du Plessis on what was turning out to be a damp pitch: it had been under covers for the last couple of days due to the threat of rain and helped the spinners with turn and grip, while Mustafizur’s cutters were effective.
Mumbai needed Suryakumar, who is also the Indian T20I captain, to bail them out once again, and SKY did exactly what was needed. In fact, given the stickiness of the pitch and the pressure of this match, this is, without a doubt, one of his best IPL knocks.
MI were 58/3 in the 7th over when Suryakumar Yadav was joined in the middle by Tilak Varma, who was then tied down by DC. Boundaries were few and far between in their partnership of 55 runs off 49, in which Varma scored a run-a-ball 27.
Waiting gives you a lot of truths in life: Suryakumar Yadav After Hitting 73 vs DC
Suryakumar held his end, but he, too, scored at a strike rate of just over 100 until Hardik Pandya’s wicket in the 17th over. At the end of the 18th over, MI were 132/5 with SKY batting on 45 (35), and it looked like MI would crawl till 160. However, Suryakumar Yadav and Naman Dhir took a proper toll of the last two overs of the innings, bowled by Mukesh Kumar and Dushmantha Chameera.
The last two overs went for 48 runs. Suryakumar finished on 73* (43) and Dhir on 24* (8), MI finishing on 180, which seems a good total on this pitch and considering their bowling attack.
After his superb knock, Suryakumar reflected on his season and admitted that he had been waiting for this kind of knock for a “very long” time; prior to the IPL, he had struggled for consistency in T20Is as well.
Suryakumar said, “This is one innings which I was hoping for a very long time. A difficult situation I go into bat and I try to bat till the end and get a score which is maybe a little above par. (Was batting difficult?) It was a slow wicket with the weather around, but we had to dig deep; we talked about that during our practice sessions. We knew that the wicket’s going to be like this, so we planned accordingly, and that’s the same way we batted.”
On setting himself up for the last couple of overs, Yadav said, “Waiting gives you a lot of truths in life, it felt I was good inside. I haven’t checked the dew till now, but we thought it’s a 160-165 wicket. We’ve got 15 runs extra. Let’s see, good game on the hands.”
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