Andukuri Phaneendra
Suryakumar Yadav has been declared fit and is likely to feature in Mumbai Indians’ next IPL game against Delhi Capitals at the Wankhede Stadium on Sunday.
The National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru cleared the middle-order batsman, who had missed more than three months of cricket, on Wednesday. The BCCI and the physios at the NCA didn’t want to take any chances and satisfied themselves thoroughly before giving Yadav the go-ahead.
“He is fit now. The NCA made him play a few practice games and he looked good. He can join the Mumbai Indians team. We wanted to be sure that when Surya goes back to MI, he is 100 percent fit and ready to play games. He wasn’t feeling 100% during his first fitness Test before the IPL, so we waited to see if there was any pain while he was batting,” a source in the BCCI confirmed, adding that the batsman had to undergo three fitness tests.
The availability of Yadav, the No.1 T20I batsman in the ICC rankings, will be a shot in the arm for Mumbai Indians, who have started their IPL 2024 campaign with three consecutive defeats, with new skipper Hardik Pandya facing the ire of the fans in every match.