Suryakumar stands alone on tricky Wankhede deck

What is the Fanatics lawsuit against Marvin Harrison Jr Why hasn t he signed a licensing deal Here s what we know

Suryakumar Yadav could well be the most cartoonish character in Indian cricket. He cracks jokes in press conferences, fools around before matches, and is always flashing that beaming smile, and if you trawl through his Instagram stories on a non-match day, you'll find him watching some classic Hindi comedy in his hotel room.

No wonder he makes a joke of bowling attacks around the world and across conditions.

What he does and how he does it continue to mystify viewers, and this feeling was heightened on Monday when he scored his sixth T20 century, for Mumbai Indians against Sunrisers Hyderabad, and his second in the IPL. The bewilderment that his batting generates doesn't come from the numbers, which are hard to match anyway, but from the style of his shot-making, and this was especially true on Monday.

It was far from a flat track at the Wankhede Stadium. Suryakumar had to face a potent pace attack that was loving the movement on offer. And he had not even gotten off the mark when Mumbai slipped to 31 for 3 in the fifth over.

That third wicket could have been of Suryakumar off any of the three deliveries before Naman Dhir's dismissal. The ball was seaming and swinging, and Pat Cummins had his tail up having just dismissed Rohit Sharma. The first ball Suryakumar faced betrayed him like a waiter you think is bringing your plate to your table but turns to another just before reaching you. The second ball also pitched in the channel and straightened to beat the outside edge. The third wasn't very different and Suryakumar tried to punch it away, but missed again.

Sometimes it takes just one shot to get you going, even if it's off the edge. When Suryakumar got on strike in Cummins' next over, he went for a flick off his pads, but the ball flew almost off the back of his bat for a six over the deep third boundary.

And if it's not one shot that gets you going, it's one over. Even though the powerplay was done, Suryakumar may have seen Marco Jansen, the least experienced of the SRH quicks, running in, and thought to himself, "this is the over." There was a wide gap between mid-on and deep midwicket and Suryakumar was happy to clip the ball on his pads to the vacant boundary. When Jansen went full next, he went too full, and with mid-on in the circle, Suryakumar drilled him back along the carpet for another four. What follows a full delivery? Jansen banged one in short next, angling into the stumps, and even before the ball could reach Suryakumar, he had shuffled to off for one of his trademark pick-up shots over fine leg. When he got the strike back for the last ball, Jansen gifted him a dolly on the pads and Suryakumar flicked it for six to make it a 22-run over of which he had smashed 21.

Having waltzed from 11 off nine to 32 off 14, Suryakumar was in his zone. When Cummins returned and hammered away in the corridor outside off, Suryakumar unflinchingly and patiently offered the straight bat. He scored only one run off five balls in that 10th over, but it was a mini-victory because SRH were desperate for his wicket.

"I feel it was the need of the hour today," he explained at the presentation. "When I went in to bat, three wickets were down and it had to be someone to play till the end and that's what I did. I knew as the dew was heavy and as soon as the seam goes off, it will be easy for a batter to play those shots.

"The traditional shots are from the Mumbai school of arts," he said of his straight-bat shots. "I've played a lot of first-class cricket for Mumbai and a lot of games at Wankhede. I know when the ball is seaming, what's the right option at that time, that's what I tried to do today. When the ball stopped seaming, I played all my shots which I practise in the nets."

Soon, though, Suryakumar began to hobble. It could have been cramps, because it was barely below 30 degrees Celsius in Mumbai despite being past 10pm and he was playing his first proper tournament after coming back from groin surgery, which had kept him out of action since December 14, 2023, the day of his last T20 hundred.

It's possible that Suryakumar felt he would have to go off the field soon, and seeing the equation at 69 off 48, and the ball in Jansen's hand again, he upped the gears once more. Having brought up his fifty off 30 balls, he smacked the left-arm quick for back-to-back fours again, and when Cummins tried to stem the flow of runs by bringing on Shahbaz Ahmed, a left-arm spinner (the one match-up that's kept him relatively quiet in recent years), Suryakumar dispatched him for boundaries with two good-looking sweeps.

"He's one, by nature, instinctively very aggressive," Mumbai batting coach Kieron Pollard said at the post-match press conference. "So he wants to take the bowlers on more often than not. At times it's just a matter of understanding the situation and respecting the new ball when it's moving around, and the conditions are not suitable for certain kind of shot-making. We have that discipline in order to be there for a period of time and then get into your work."

The ball was sodden with dew now, it was as hard to control as it was to curb Suryakumar. In the 17th over, Cummins tried the slow cutters into the pitch that had worked for him against Rajasthan Royals, but Suryakumar dispatched two of them to the vacant midwicket boundary. When Cummins sent long-on to deep midwicket and banged in another short ball, Suryakumar pummeled it over square leg for six to reach 96.

He completed his century with his sixth six in the next over, and that shot also took Mumbai past their target. He took his sweat-soaked helmet off and, as handshakes were exchanged next to the pitch, he went and stood alone at one end of the 22 yards and looked down at the track, as if to say, "you were a little tricky today, but I got you in the end."