New Delhi (IANS) | Suryakumar Yadav was once again at his sensational best as he smashed 83 (35 balls) to help Mumbai Indians beat Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in Match No. 54 of IPL 2023 at the Wankhede Stadium on Tuesday night.
Chasing a challenging 200 for victory, Mumbai won by six wickets in 16.3 overs. Nehal Wadhera also performed brilliantly with the bat, scoring an unbeaten 52 off 34 balls. His innings had four fours and three sixes. Earlier, RCB did well to reach 199/6, thanks mainly to skipper Faf du Plessis’ 65 (41 balls) and Glenn Maxwell’s 68 (33 balls).
With this win, Mumbai has 12 points from 11 matches and has now reached the third position in the 10-team table. RCB, on the other hand, are at the 7th spot with 10 points from 11 matches and the race for the play-offs is getting hotter.
GeoCinema’s IPL expert Zaheer Khan couldn’t believe how easily Yadav dominated the match. He said, “To stop Surya the way he is batting, he needs to hold his bat from behind or hold his feet. There was a difficult phase but when he found his rhythm, he got better and better. This will never be good news.
The former India fast bowler said, “The way he bats and the way he approaches it, no field placement can stop him. Every time I watch him play, it seems that Bowlers trying to bowl outside off-stump, pack the field with four players, and Skye is still hitting fours and you can’t stop it.”
It was the third time in IPL history that Mumbai chased down a target of 190 runs or more in 17 overs, becoming the only team to do so.
Suresh Raina credited the winning culture prevalent in the team for this comeback after a slow start to the season. Raina said, “Suryakumar Yadav’s celebration showed how easily a team can chase 200 runs. He is in excellent form and it reminds us that MI know how to chase and come back. Have won trophies time and again and have match winners. Every year their locker room is full of such players be it Tilak Verma, Wadhera, Green, Tim David, and the biggest of all Piyush Chawla. He is always there at crucial moments to get MI wickets They bowl in the IPL. That’s why they dominate the IPL. To rise from 8th to 3rd in the standings is something not every team can do.”
–IANS
