Returning with just 28 runs across five innings in the T20I series against England, Suryakumar Yadav is facing his worst slump. What could this mean for Mumbai Indians in IPL 2025?
Since making his debut for India in March 2021, Suryakumar Yadav has arguably been the best T20 batter in the world. He had been the most important batter for Mumbai Indians and for India before this new breed of madmen arrived on the scene.
Suryakumar was appointed as India’s T20I captain following their triumph in the T20 World Cup. While he took over the leadership mantle pretty well, his numbers with the willow have gotten worse.
As the build-up for IPL 2025 begins, we take a look at whether this slump could be a cause of concern for Mumbai Indians.
Suryakumar Yadav returned to Mumbai Indians in 2018 and had a couple of solid seasons but struck at around 133. When he scored at a strike rate of 145 in PL 2020, he showed the first signs of what he could become. Following a memorable debut innings against England, he had an ordinary IPL 2021 as he struggled to bring consistency to his attacking approach.
SKY then reached the heights of T20 batting perhaps only Chris Gayle, AB de Villiers and to some extent, Jos Buttler had achieved. From the start of 2022 till the end of the 2024 T20 World Cup, Yadav amassed 3335 runs in all T20s at an average of 43.31 while striking at 169.20.
To show you how ridiculous these numbers were, among batters with a minimum of 1500 runs in this period, Suryakumar ranked third on the best averages and only Andre Russell had a better strike rate than him. His closest rival in this period was Heinrich Klaasen, who struck at 160.22 while averaging 37.78.
You can understand from the above graph, just how far ahead Suryakumar was compared to some of the other top batters in this period.
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Following that glorious run of form, Suryakumar Yadav has struggled to score big, falling early time and again. He has played 22 T20 innings since the T20 World Cup, scoring 471 runs at an average of 21.40 and a strike rate of 149. SKY has had only three fifty-plus scores in this period, against Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Services.
In the recent T20I series against England, Yadav only managed 28 runs in five innings, getting dismissed without scoring in two of those. This fall from his peak has certainly made him and Mumbai Indians a bit concerned.
Suryakumar Yadav’s value to Mumbai Indians – alongside Jasprit Bumrah’s – can not be stressed enough. He had a poor IPL 2021 and they came fifth. He missed half the 2022 season with injury and MI finished at the bottom of the table.
SKY had an incredible IPL 2023 with over 600 runs at 43 average and 181 strike rate, and they reached the playoffs. IPL 2024, he missed a few games with injury and internal conflicts meant they had another wooden spoon.
A stretch of 22 innings and seven months is a substantial enough sample size for a player to be out of form. However, most of his dismissals have been random and have occurred while playing his attacking shots, and not because of a certain weakness. So there is still hope for him to find his mojo once again and start piling on runs.
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