Suryakumar Yadav marked his return to competitive cricket with an unbeaten 60 off 21 balls for Mumbai against Hyderabad in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy on Saturday, then said he wants to play for India again. Mumbai chased 173 with 41 balls to spare and seven wickets in hand at the Jadavpur University Campus 2nd Ground in Kolkata. National selector SS Das was watching at the ground.
Suryakumar Yadav fifty sets up Mumbai win
Suryakumar Yadav came in at number four in the eighth over and finished the match himself. He struck six fours and five sixes, reached his fifty off 15 balls and batted at a strike rate of 285.71. He put on 65 runs off 23 balls with Musheer Khan, who made 51 off 24, and Mumbai passed the target with ease. Hyderabad had set 173, and Mumbai lost only three wickets in reply.
It was Suryakumar Yadav’s first competitive match since May, when he last played in the Indian Premier League. Suryakumar Yadav scored 270 runs from 13 innings for Mumbai Indians in that IPL season, at an average of 20.76 and a strike rate of 147.54. He said he had not played any cricket for two or three months after the IPL, after he lost his place in the Indian team, and had spent the time training and practising instead.
Suryakumar Yadav on losing India place
The 36-year-old was direct about how the omission had affected him. “After winning the World Cup you naturally think that you will play in India’s next series after the IPL,” he said. “But the selectors must have thought of something to decide to change captaincy. But I was definitely disappointed. If you’re not sad after such things, how will you turn it into passion?” He had been India’s T20I captain, and he lost both the captaincy and his place in the side after the World Cup win.
He said the hunger to play for India had returned in full. “The same hunger that I had to play for India is back now. I want to play for the country again, so I have to knock down the selectors’ door,” he said. “My intent is clear, to make a comeback. When you have that target in mind to play for India, you work in one direction and bat in a disciplined way. I have worked on a lot of things, from my mental game to the skills.”
He also reached for a line from the film MS Dhoni: The Untold Story to describe his approach. In the film, a friend of Dhoni says to hit the ball where the selectors are sitting, and Suryakumar Yadav said that was his plan on Saturday. “Selector jahan baitha hai, wahin maarna,” he said, and added in Hindi that if he wants to play for India again, he will have to break the door down again. The innings came with a selector in the ground, and the timing was hard to miss.
Mumbai next play Gujarat on Monday
The half-century arrived at a useful moment for Suryakumar Yadav. The IPL 2027 retention deadline is set for 17 November, and a big innings in domestic cricket is the clearest way for a player outside the national side to make his case. Mumbai will next play Gujarat on Monday, 16 November, at the same venue in Kolkata. Mumbai are in Elite Group D with Gujarat, Vidarbha, Goa, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Uttarakhand.
Suryakumar Yadav had not been included in Mumbai’s Ranji Trophy squad for the first leg of the season, with Siddhesh Lad captaining the red-ball side. The Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy is his route back, and he has been named Mumbai captain for the competition. Mumbai’s squad for the tournament also includes Shardul Thakur, who missed the first leg of the Ranji Trophy with an injury to his right middle finger.
Mumbai beat Hyderabad by seven wickets in Kolkata, chasing 173 with 41 balls to spare. Suryakumar Yadav finished unbeaten on 60 from 21 balls, with six fours and five sixes, and Musheer Khan made 51 from 24 balls. His message after the match was plain: he wants to play for India again, and he plans to force his way back through runs.