Suryakumar Yadav made mockery of Royal Challengers Bangalore's (RCB) in Mumbai Indians' (MI) six-wicket triumph in Indian Premier League's (IPL) match no.54 at the Wankhede stadium on Tuesday (May 9). Once again Suryakumar's explosive knock was on the fore when MI needed him the most. Suryakumar rode on lightning knock of 35-ball 83 to make the light work of RCB's big target of 200 run.
Not just Suryakumar hammered six sixes en-route to his fourth IPL fifty in his last six IPL innings but he also looked absolutely sublime in finding the gaps and launched seven fours to keep MI always up in the challenging chase.
Virat Kohli and Faf Du Plessis, who were at the receiving end, could only helplessly watch Suryakumar taking the game away from RCB. Kohli, who was in awe of star batter's quality batting, also walked upto Suryakumar and hugged him when he was approaching the dressing room.
While Ganguly said that it seems Suryakumar bats on a computer, India's batting great Sunil Gavaskar also couldn't resist himself from heaping praise on the explosive batter.
Gavaskar said that Suryakumar's batting gave him feel of ‘gully cricket’ where the batters ‘toy’ with the bowlers. "SKY was toying with the bowlers. He gives you a feeling of gully cricket when he's batting like that. He's just gotten better with practice and hard work. His bottom hand is so powerful that he uses it to perfection. Against RCB, he started with hitting towards long-on and long-off and later agricultural shots all around the park," Gavaskar said on Star Sports' Cricket Live.
Besides Suryakumar's onslaught, Ishan Kishan's 21-ball 42 and Nehal Wadhera's unbeaten 52 off 34 also came handy in MI monumental chase with 21 balls to spare.
While heaping praise on Wadhera, Gavaskar said, "When you are batting with SKY your confidence is boosted, but the best thing about Nehal Wadhera's innings was that he wasn't looking to play shots like SKY. The best thing about him is that his balance was superb."
Meanwhile, RCB skipper Faf Du Plessis who couldn't do anything but only watch Suryakumar ripping apart his bowlers with sheer brutality.
With MI at 52 for 2, Faf du Plessis was looking to put the squeeze on but Suryakumar Yadav and young Nehal Wadhera had other ideas as they tore into the RCB bowling attack. It was young Wadhera, who had hit his first fifty of his IPL career against Chennai Super Kings earlier this month, who gave the charge, by nonchalantly hitting the big ones. Suryakumar soon joined the party and he turned it into carnage by playing one of his most destructive knocks.
In the post match presentation, the disheartened and shocked Faf was in awe of Suryakumar and said that he can make any captain extremely grey with the way builds his innings and take the game away from opponents.
"He is one of the best, isn't he? When he gets going, he is really difficult to bowl to. He makes a captain extremely grey, he has got so many options. You feel like you can't really shut him down. That's why he is one of the best in the modern-era," Faf du Plessis said.
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