Mumbai Indians are set to play their second consecutive game without one of their premium players. As per reports, Suryakumar Yadav failed to get a clearance from National Cricket Academy (NCA) ahead of the match against Sunrisers Hyderabad. The 33-year-old has been nursing an ankle injury and didn’t play in MI’s season opener match at Gujarat Titans. Mumbai are eying a return to winning ways when they play 2016 IPL winners SRH at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium on Wednesday evening. The match is set to kick-off at 07:30 PM (IST).
Also Read: SRH vs MI Dream 11 Prediction
When Suryakumar Yadav Can Return In IPL 2024?
Suryakumar Yadav has been out of action since suffering a horror ankle injury in the 3rd T20I game against South Africa on December 14, 2023. SKY, as fans love to call him, remarkably scored a 56-ball hundred in the same match and helped India tie the series 1-1. Since then, Surya has been in rehabilitation program at NCA for nursing the injury.
Surya underwent a fitness test on March 19, and failed to get the clearance to play in MI’s season opener match against GT.
The 2nd test was done on March 21 and this time around it was expected that Surya might get a clean chit from NCA. However, the same thing happened as Surya failed the fitness test for the 2nd time.
It is understood that Surya is likely to return to IPL 2024 in either the third or fourth match of Mumbai Indians. That means, a return in a home game is on the cards. Because the 5-time IPL winners will play their third and fourth IPL 2024 game against Rajasthan Royals on April 1 and Delhi Capitals on April 7 at Wankhede Stadium.
Not An Ideal Start For Hardik Pandya In IPL 2024
Hardik Pandya didn’t have an ideal start to his second home coming as Mumbai Indians lost the first match under his captaincy. But the defeat hurt MI fans even more because of the way it came.
After opting to bowl first, MI bowlers, led by Jasprit Bumrah’s 3/14 return, performed really well as no GT batsman could score big. MI also made a good start to the chase and at one stage were 107/2 after 12 overs. But GT bowlers scripted an unlikely comeback, with Mumbai Indians finally coming short by 6 runs.
