In the seventh match of the IPL 2021 season, the defending Champions Mumbai Indians face off against Punjab Kings at M A Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai.
Punjab Kings won the toss and chose to bowl.
Mumbai Indians have been very successful with their team game since the beginning of the season, as they have been holding their spot in the upper half of the points table, on the other hand, Punjab’s performance hasn’t been incredible but the team has managed to stay afloat.
Mumbai Indians, known for their destructive batting power, opened with their usual opening batting line-up, but things didn’t work out well for the defending champions as Quinton de Kock disappointed everyone yet again and was dismissed for just 3 runs, Ishan Kishan also continued with his poor performance and went back to the Pavillion as fast as he came to the crease.
Captain Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav were left at the crease with two of their openers in the dugout, Sharma and Yadav now had all the responsibility of the team’s score on themselves, although they struggled to score big, the duo stuck to basics and played a steady inning.
Suryakumar Yadav realized his responsibilities early in the match and largely supported Rohit Sharma who was slowly settling in while scoring essential runs himself to make up for the total of the team.
Suryakumar Yadav and Rohit Sharma’s duo troubled Punjab’s bowler for a long time.
Suryakumar Yadav’s ability to play quick and big shots while switching made it easy for Rohit Sharma to continue building up his score to reach the half-century. Yadav played an amazing inning of 33 runs of 27 balls, coupled with 3 boundaries and 1 sixer, in the most crucial time of the match where Mumbai Indians almost got themselves into deep trouble as their opening batting order collapsed. Yadav’s timely batting motivated by experience helped Rohit Sharma settle down and score 63 essential runs for the team.
Suryakumar Yadav was dismissed by Ravi Bishnoi with a loopy ball around the offside, Yadav tried to play his favorite reverse sweep but the extra bounce on the ball ended up on the top edge of the bat which sent the ball straight to the third man Chris Morris who ran for the ball and caught it easily without any mistake.
Suryakumar Yadav’s batting performance provided Mumbai Indians some essential runs and time to get back into the match for sure as Mumbai currently is at 123 runs for 18.5 over with a loss of 5 wickets.
