Sensational Suryakumar ton overshadows Rashid Khan’s all-round brilliance

Tags: Indian T20 League 2023, Mumbai Indians vs Gujarat Titans, 57th Match at Mumbai, May 12, 2023, Mumbai XI, Gujarat XI

Published on: May 13, 2023

Scorecard | Commentary | Graphs

Mumbai Indians (MI) batter Suryakumar Yadav scored a splendid 103 not out off 49 balls, his maiden Indian Premier League (IPL) ton, as his team defeated Gujarat Titans (GT) by 27 runs in match number 57 at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Friday, May 12. The margin of defeat could have been much worse for GT but for a brilliant all-round show from Rashid Khan. After claiming 4/30, he smashed an unbeaten 79 off 32 balls as Gujarat recovered from 103/8 to finish on 191/8.

Batting first, Mumbai got off to a brisk start as Ishan Kishan (31 off 20) and Rohit Sharma (29 off 18) added 61 in the powerplay. Rashid dismissed both in the seventh over of the innings. Rohit was caught at slip and Kishan trapped leg before. The GT leggie also knocked over Nehal Wadhera for 15.

Suryakumar was then joined by Vishnu Vinod (30 off 20) and the duo added 65 runs for the fourth wicket. Vinod struck two fours and two sixes before miscuing a full toss from Mohit Sharma. Suryakumar was in his zone by then and played some audacious strokes even by his standards to notch up his maiden IPL ton. The right-handed batter’s knock featured 11 fours and six sixes. He even brought up his hundred with a maximum, sweeping the last ball of Mumbai’s innings from Alzarri Joseph over the ropes.

Chasing 219, Gujarat lost half their side for 55 as Impact Player Akash Madhwal picked up 3/31. The pacer trapped Wriddhiman Saha (2) and David Miller (41) lbw. In between, he cleaned up Shubman Gill for 6. At the other end, Jason Behrendorff had Hardik Pandya (4) caught behind, while Vijay Shankar (29) and Abhinav Manohar (2) were cleaned up by Piyush Chawla and Kumar Kartikeya respectively.

Gujarat had slumped to 103/8. However, Rashid clobbered 10 sixes and three fours to bring down the margin of defeat rather significantly.

Speaking after being named Player of the Match, Suryakumar said, “Whenever I get runs I think the team should win, most importantly we batted first today and said that we would keep the same tempo when you are chasing 200-220. There was a lot of dew on the ground, it was there from the 7-8th over and I knew what shots to play.

He continued, “I was not thinking about hitting straight, I had two shots in the mind - one over fine leg and one over third man. There is lots and lots of practice before the game, so when I come into the game I am very clear and just go express myself.”

--By A Cricket Correspondent

Related News