Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya came running onto the field to congratulate Suryakumar Yadav for his outstanding knock that could potentially take Mumbai Indians to the IPL 2025 playoffs. Suryakumar reserved his best innings for the 18th season when a spot in the playoffs was on the line. India’s T20I captain brought his A game to the table by smashing an unbeaten 73 off 43 balls on a Wankhede pitch that stopped and turned to help MI post an “above-par” total of 180 for five against Delhi Capitals.
After Suryakumar hit two sixes and as many fours in the last over bowled by Dushmantha Chameera to give MI’s innings a grand finish, Hardik came charging onto the pitch to hug Surya and give him a few hard pats on the back. Surya deserved all that and more for an innings that only he could have.
Jasprit Bumrah was not too far behind. He also came in and hugged Surya to appreciate his breathtaking innings.
“This is one innings which I was hoping for a long time: a difficult situation, to bat through to the end,” Surya told the broadcasters in the mid-innings interview. “Maybe it (the score) is a little above par. It was a slightly slow wicket with the weather around. We wanted to take it deep, talked about that during the practice sessions. Planned for it and batted accordingly. Waiting gives you a lot of fruits in life, but felt good inside (while batting),” he added.
On an uncharacteristic Wankhede Stadium pitch which had plenty of grip and turn for spinners and slow cutters doing the job for fast bowlers, Suryakumar dug in to produce a quality knock for the five-time IPL winners.
Suryakumar struck seven fours and four sixes to make 73 not out off 43 balls while forging two crucial stands, which revived a faltering innings. Suryakumar got a lifeline batting on six when a leading edge fell to the left of a diving Mukesh Kumar at short leg off Kuldeep in the seventh over. But once he got his eyes in, there was no stopping the boundaries.
First, amid a challenging phase of play with DC’s spinners dominating the proceedings, Suryakumar put on 55 runs for the fourth wicket with Tilak Varma and towards the end, found a perfect foil in Dhir (24 off 8 balls, 2x4s, 2x6s) to add another 57 runs from a mere 21 balls.
The tables turned drastically in the last two overs when the Indian T20 skipper Suryakumar and Dhir hit a grand total of five sixes and four boundaries to add 48 runs, shifting the momentum completely in MI’s favour.