During the IPL 2020 season, Suryakumar Yadav went viral on social media not for his impressive knocks but for his intense staredown against Virat Kohli during his team’s match against RCB.
Suryakumar Yadav Recalls Staredown with Virat Kohli
In the 48th game of the IPL 2020, RCB had posted 164 runs while batting first and had managed to pick two early wickets during MI’s chase in the second innings. Yadav was the saviour for Mumbai as he anchored the game with his 79* (43) and helped his team sail past RCB, winning the game by five wickets.
During Surya’s innings, he had hit the ball towards Virat, who picked it up and gave him a long intense stare walking up to him. Kohli’s attempt to anguish him failed as the batter responded with his terrific knock.
Recalling the incident on Gaurav Kapur’s YouTube show Breakfast with Champions, Yadav said:
“…His sledging was on another level in that match. And I was focused that whatever happens, I have to win the match for the team, without speaking anything,” the Mumbai batter said about the incident.
Revealing that he was horribly scared inside but had to maintain a calm demeanour in the game, he stated that his heart was racing at that point.
“I was dead scared inside when he walked towards me, I was chewing gum and my heart was racing. There was an inner voice that was telling me – whatever happens, don’t say a word, it’s a matter of 10 seconds, this will be over soon and the next over will begin,” Surya went on with his story.
He said that for some reason his bat fell on the ground and he was finally able to remove eye contact to pick up the bat. He stated that he did not look in Kohli’s eye for that entire period of the game ever again.
“It was good fortune that my bat fell down at that point and I did not see him till the time the match was over. No chance, I was looking down and batting and we have not even discussed the incident ever outside the pitch,” he concluded on the incident.
Apart from the history, in the current IPL season, Mumbai Indians walk through one of their worst seasons as they lost all 6 matches they played so far.
On the other hand RCB with their new captain Faf du Plessis plays their dream season where they hold the second position in the IPL 2022 points table with a total of 10 points from 7 matches they played so far.
In IPL 2022 season, RCB and MI faces each other on April 9 where RCB won the match by 7 wickets. Notably, Suryakumar Yadav is the highest run-scorer for MI where he scored unbeaten 68 runs off 37 balls.
Not like the previous season, both teams will not play two league matches this season. As per IPL 2022 rules, all 10 teams are divided into two groups of 5 and will play a total of 14 league matches (7 home matches and 7 away matches) totalling to 70 league matches, followed by the 4 playoff matches.
Each team will play 5 teams twice(in their group) and the remaining 4 teams(in another group) only once.
