He has bowled to both Suryakumar Yadav and AB de Villiers.
Mumbai Indians (MI) spinner Karn Sharma has revealed that his IPL teammate Suryakumar Yadav is more difficult to bowl to than former Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) batter AB de Villiers. Having bowled to both of them, Karn Sharma was speaking from his own experience.
“Form-wise, Surya is more difficult to bowl to than AB de Villiers. Why? Because Surya can sweep the same ball in four directions. He can hit to the leg side, midwicket, straight, even over covers. That’s what makes it tough. He can hit you out of the park,” Karn Sharma said during an exclusive interaction with CricXtasy on the latest episode of the CX Pod.
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When asked if Suryakumar Yadav could do this on the same ball, the 37-year-old said: “Yes, same ball. That’s why bowling to him is difficult. No matter how good the bowler—Rashid Khan or any top spinner—Surya dominates them.”
The Railways cricketer elaborated on how Suryakumar Yadav dominates spinners. In IPL 2025, SKY, as he is often called by his fans, scored 350 runs from 16 innings at a strike-rate of 163.55 against spinners.
“This season especially,” Karn continued. “This year too. Whether it’s international or domestic, he’s dominated everywhere—especially against spinners. Spinners fear him. Because he can sweep and loft over covers. That’s very difficult for any batter to execute consistently,” he stated.
Overall, Suryakumar Yadav was Mumbai Indians’ highest run-getter in IPL 2025. He aggregated 717 runs from 16 matches at a strike-rate of 167.91 and an average of 65.18. He was consistent throughout the season and registered five half-centuries.
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Karn Sharma has bowled to AB de Villiers in four matches but he failed to take a wicket of the South African on any of those occasions.
In one game against Royal Challengers Bengaluru in IPL 2014, Karn, playing for Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) then, dropped AB de Villiers while the latter was batting on 30. De Villiers went on to play a knock of 89 to guide Royal Challengers Bengaluru to a four-wicket win with just one ball to spare.
Karn later rued his drop catch for costing Sunrisers Hyderabad the match. “If I had held on to that catch, maybe the game could have swung in our favour. But it is part and parcel of the game; at times you hold on to those and sometimes they don’t stick to your hands,” he had said back then.
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