IPL 2023: MI vs PBKS
Surya made the bowler alter his strategy twice in Nathan Ellis’ one over, and he still won.
The Mumbai Indians might be the poorest club in the IPL 2023 on every bowling parameter. However, they are tied with four other teams for fourth place on the points chart. They have let up 200 in four straight games, but in two of them, they have chased it down.
On Wednesday, Akash Madhwal from Uttarakhand, Mumbai’s newest debutant, brilliantly hammered a yorker outside off against Punjab Kings. Jitesh Sharma, however, timed it away for a four-through point, which should have prompted concerns from rights organisations.
Bowlers show up and perform the same actions most days, yet the outcomes might vary greatly. It shouldn’t have taken this long to have this talk because Suryakumar Yadav has been making bowlers and captains defenceless for at least three years. Suryakumar repeated it in just one over, just in case you had forgotten it during his golden duck phase.
Surya the 360-degree player
In the 14th over of the chase, Nathan Ellis, the Kings attack’s standout bowler, had the ball. Suryakumar had played the renowned open-face drive for a six behind square on the offside in the previous over. Ellis, therefore, reasoned that he would defend that boundary and bowl slower deliveries outside off. Suryakumar ran over and scooped it for a pair after Ellis had nailed it, giving it the power to clear a short fine leg with a late flip of the wrists.
Ellis decided to bowl straight and defend the leg side. He was on target again this round, but Suryakumar played the slice-drive over point once more. It didn’t go for a six because of the slower delivery, but Mumbai scored four runs instead.
Ellis returned to Plan A after being haunted. Again, Suryakumar retrieved the ball from outside off, but this time he managed to scoop it with enough force to allow the slower ball to pass short fine leg for an additional two runs.
Its batting was absurd. A slower-ball bowler like Ellis wouldn’t have had even that lone man policing the boundary behind square against any other batsman. This is due to the fact that nobody is as proficient behind square as Suryakumar, especially when AB de Villiers retired from the game, as has been seen above.
Suryakumar scored 66 of 31 deliveries sending 14 balls behind for more than half of his runs while hitting a boundary with about every other ball he played there.
The problem is that Kings would have had to make room for either additional cover or midwicket if they had gone to defend both of the boundaries behind square. Suryakumar is also not afraid to hit fours and sixes there.
Of course, nothing Suryakumar did to facilitate the successful pursuit of 215 was novel, but consider this: in a format where bowlers aren’t very important, Suryakumar views them as even less important. He had an appropriate swagger as he chewed gum and acknowledged the cheers for turning 50.