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Mumbai Indians are set to play their opening game of IPL 2024 against Gujarat Titans on Sunday (March 24) at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. Hardik Pandya will be leading the team this season but the all-rounder might have to be without a few of his clutch players at the start of the season. Gerald Coetzee and Dilshan Madhushanka are already unlikely at least for the first match. Now Suryakumar Yadav too is yet to join the MI camp with only six days to go for the opening game.
He last played on South Africa tour in the T20I series when he was also the captain of the Indian team. Since then, Surya has been away from the sport due to injury and also underwent surgery for sports hernia in January 2024 in Germany. Expectedly, a question on his availability was also asked at the pre-season conference of Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya and head coach Mark Boucher.
Responding to the question, the latter confirmed that the team management is awaiting an update from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) regarding Surya’s injury. This, for now, puts Suryakumar Yadav in serious doubt at least for the opening game on Sunday. With no cricket behind him for three months now and the fact that he is yet to join the team, it remains to be seen if he will be able to play at the start of the season.
“We are awaiting updates on Suryakumar from the BCCI. We have always been under a cloud of fitness issues but we have a world-class medical team. We may lose one or two in terms of fitness but we have to move on as is sport,” Boucher said. Surya was the best player for MI in IPL 2023 amassing 605 runs in 16 innings at an average of 43.21 and a strike-rate of 181.13 with five fifties and a century to his name.
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