MI vs DC IPL 2024: Hype SKY High

MI vs DC Suryakumar Yadav hype is SKY high

When Delhi Capitals (DC) won the toss and decided to bowl, there was an air of anticipation amongst the Mumbai Indian (MI) fans on what would Suryakumar Yadav do with the bat. Social media and television sports commentators had been building up the hype with the buzz that Suryakumar was fit to play, and it was expected that he would help in righting the listing ship of Mumbai.

MI released a statement on Friday, two days before the match, that Suryakumar Yadav had joined practice sessions at the Wankhede Stadium. The right-handed batter has been the best that MI had in the last three seasons and fans were overjoyed at his comeback from injury.  Suryakumar had missed the first three matches, which Mumbai lost, as he was recovering from an ankle injury suffered during the South Africa tour by India in December last year.  Suryakumar later revealed that he had suffered a sports hernia infection and that was what kept him away from all the initial action.

But when the time for action came on Sunday, Suryakumar failed to live up to his promise of disruptive batting, he lasted all of 2 balls and contributed 0 to his team total. He went for the big one and mistimed the Anrich Nortje delivery, handing a catch to J Fraser-McGurk.

Even though MI ultimately won the fixture, social media was unforgiving in highlighting Suryakumar’s failure. On X there were references to a duck. Some handles found the fault to be lying in Hardik Pandya’s captaincy, a leadership role that had fans upset over Pandya replacing long time captain Rohit Sharma.

Suryakumar a.k.a SKY has a substantial T20 record to back the hype around his name. In IPL matches he has a consistent record since 2014. 140 matches, 3249 runs, 1 century and 21 half centuries with an impressive strike rate of 143.19. In the last IPL season of 2023, playing for MI, he scored 603 runs in 16 innings with a strike-rate of 181.14.

In a pre-match interview, on Sunday, Suryakant said he hoped to do on field what he does best – play with gay abandon. Now the explosive batter will have to wait for another occasion to do so, maybe for a match where others fail to fire, and he gets to steady the ship of Mumbai Indian dreams.