Suryakumar Yadav moved so smoothly to the first ball he faced.
He had clocked the variation out of Noor Ahmad’s hand. Or maybe he had looked at the data, which points to the bowler’s love of googlies. Whatever the case, he knew which way the ball was turning. So the major threat that a mystery spinner poses was already down by the wayside. From there, it was all a matter of his hands. Usually they are lighting fast. All those scoops that he plays require incredible bat speed. Here they showed a different skill. Touch.
Suryakumar waited until the short-of-a-length delivery had passed him and then calmly placed it wide of the wide slip that was in place. Just like that, he was 4 off 1.
Scoring quickly, though, hasn’t been his problem in IPL 2026. His strike rate remains a decent 144.09. It’s the runs. They are not coming as they used to. He is 183 after nine innings. The last time his season tally got capped at 200 was in 2017.
Suryakumar should have at least five more innings to fix that; it’s unlikely Mumbai Indians (MI) will be thinking of dumping him, but they will be aware of a pattern that has crept into his batting. He’s not hitting pace like he used to, averaging 10.71 against them. Fifty-three batters have faced at least 50 balls of fast bowling in IPL 2026. Fifty-one of them have done better.
This is ironic because the very best of Suryakumar happened when there was pace on the ball. He opened his account in T20Is whipping Jofra Archer for a six. In 2022, he amassed over 1000 T20I runs at an average of 45-plus and a strike rate of almost 190. In 2023, he crossed 600 runs in an IPL for the first time. In 2025, he was named league MVP. Somehow, he was finding ways to be what the format explicitly prevents batters from being: high intent and high volume. One year later, T20 cricket seems to have caught up. Suryakumar has faced more than 15 balls in only three out of nine innings. His strike rate against the seamers has fallen from 172.3 to 133.92. They have discovered a plan of attack, going into the pitch. He’s responded with 31 runs off 28 short and short-of-good-length deliveries with five dismissals.
“The amount of times he’s been caught on the boundary this season,” MI coach Mahela Jayawardene said to highlight the small margins between hitting a six and getting out. “Some of those shots are his shots, like even in the last game (caught at fine leg on the pull against Sunrisers Hyderabad) – or the one before that, the flick where he got caught (at deep-square leg against Chennai Super Kings). It’s just a matter of time. He himself is disappointed but just have to keep on working hard.”
Mitchell McClenaghan, who was once Suryakumar’s team-mate at MI, has a different theory, which he explained on ESPNcricinfo’s TimeOut show. “He looks like he’s being slightly rushed on deliveries this year,” he said. “Cricketers, we are creatures of habit. Once we put our left shoe on first, the right one goes on second or vice-versa. The same comes down to equipment and bats.
“As you get older, the reactions tend to get slightly slower and he’s getting rushed a little bit. Look, his bats might have changed since when I was there. But they weren’t the lightest bats in the world. And maybe just the smallest adjustment of getting a slightly lighter bat – the wood’s got enough anyway – the slightly lighter bat will bring back in those fast hands and at the moment he looks just slightly slower and when I say slightly slower, it’s only just off.”
Ambati Rayudu added to it: “I think it’s just a conscious effort of getting his bat through quicker when he plays these shots, specially his pick-up pulls, pick-up sweeps. He’s just a little slower on the ball, right from his set-up to the impact on the ball. I think he needs to check if he’s playing at the same momentum or tempo as before.”
Suryakumar lost the ability to move after the last ball he faced. Once again, he had been undone by a back-of-a-length delivery. Once again, he had struck it well. Once again, he was caught in the deep.
Something is off. Whether it’s the law of averages catching up with him or his age catching up with him, he will want to find a way past it.
