Mumbai Indians (MI) head coach Mahela Jayawardene gave an honest assessment on star batsman Suryakumar Yadav’s struggles in IPL 2026 following MI’s defeat in Chennai against the hosts Chennai Super Kings (CSK).
On Saturday evening at the Chepauk, Ruturaj Gaikwad shepherded a modest chase of 160 with a composed and fluent half-century to keep CSK alive in the playoffs race and also complete a double over their arch-rivals MI this season, having won at the Wankhede 10 days ago by more than 100 runs.
Further, this defeat, which is Mumbai’s seventh in nine games, also meant that Hardik Pandya’s team has been effectively knocked out of the playoffs competition this season. It’s staggering that MI will not reach an IPL final for the sixth season in a row.
Apart from their powerplay batting and bowling struggles, one of the key reasons for MI’s let-down season has been the poor returns of Suryakumar.
It’s astonishing that a batsman who was the Man of the Tournament in the IPL last year when he scored at least 25 runs in each of his 16 innings and recently led India to the T20 World Cup trophy has been struggling in IPL 2026 and has lacked fluency in perhaps each of his knocks.
Suryakumar Yadav’s numbers in IPL 2026:
In 9 innings this season so far, Suryakumar has scored 183 runs at an average of 20. The only positive takeaway for MI would be that he’s not relied on batting selfishly, which is reflected by his strike rate of 144 – not extraordinary or great with regard to the high-scoring nature of this season, but still enough to prove that he is not looking to play himself into an innings to regain form.
Suryakumar himself is disappointed: Mahela Jayawardene
Coach Jayawardene fronted up to media following MI’s eight-wicket loss in Chennai, where he was asked about Suryakumar’s unsatisfactory numbers this season.
Jayawardene pointed out Suryakumar’s mode of dismissals – many of them caught in the deep – including last night, when he smacked a back-of-length delivery straight into the hands of deep cover.
“The amount of times he’s been caught on the boundary this season. Some of those shots are his shots, like even in the last game (caught at fine leg on the pull against SRH) – or the one before that, the flick where he got caught (at deep-square leg against CSK in Mumbai),” Jayawardene said.
He added: “It’s just a matter of time. He himself is disappointed but just have to keep on working hard.”
Former MI pacer Mitchell McClenaghan, who played a couple of IPL seasons with Suryakumar in 2018 and 2019, opined that the batsman’s reflexive reactions have slowed down with age.
McClenaghan told ESPNcricinfo, “As you get older, the reactions tend to get slightly slower and he’s getting rushed a little bit. Look, his bats might have changed since when I was there. But they weren’t the lightest bats in the world. And maybe just the smallest adjustment of getting a slightly lighter bat will bring back in those fast hands and at the moment he looks just slightly slower.”
Being out of form for India in the last couple of years and now even for MI will put pressure on Suryakumar for his place in India’s T20I team as well, even though he’s a recently minted T20 WC-winning skipper.
With Rajat Patidar and Shreyas Iyer in the form of their lives, Suryakumar needs to lift his game back up to his best as a batsman to deflect the external and internal challenge.
The last few games of the IPL will provide him that opportunity, more so without added stress now that MI are out of the running for a top-four spot.
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