At the toss, Hardik Pandya wore a smile as he usually does during interviews. Having opted to bowl, he hoped Mumbai Indians would play for pride, the badge, and the fans. Despite his calm demeanour though the weight on his shoulders was undeniable. His side was up against Sunrisers Hyderabad, who had slammed a colossal 277/3 against them earlier in the season. More importantly, another defeat would make them the first team to get knocked-out of the playoffs race in Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024.

But riding on a sparkling century by Suryakumar Yadav, MI earned a seven-wicket win at the Wankhede Stadium on Monday and lived to fight another day. They restricted SRH to a below-par 173/8 before Surya hit an unbeaten 102 off 51 balls in a match-winning 143-run partnership with Tilak Varma (37 off 32). Their campaign is still hanging by a thread, but the five-time champions will believe they can finish away from the bottom of the table.

Having begun the chase with a string of boundaries, MI found themselves in a hole after losing three wickets for five runs. While Ishan Kishan and Naman Dhir were caught in the slips, it was Rohit Sharma’s dismissal that was the most disappointing. The India captain, who had scored 29 runs across the previous four games, got a top edge playing a half-hearted pull off Pat Cummins and walked back with four runs off five balls.

From there, however, it was the Surya show all the way. The right-hander got his second IPL century on the back of some typically breathtaking stroke play. He did well to ride the storm initially along with Varma as Cummins and Bhuvneshwar Kumar bowled testing deliveries before cutting loose, hitting 12 fours and six sixes. Cummins used just one over of spin and the strategy didn’t work as Surya kept finding the fence at will. The 33-year-old brought up his century with a six, closing out the game in the process with 16 balls to spare.

Earlier, all eyes were on Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma in anticipation of another rollicking start. Although the two left-handers weren’t at their fluent best, they managed a 56-run opening stand. It was Jasprit Bumrah, unsurprisingly, who provided the breakthrough for MI by getting Abhishek to edge to the ‘keeper.

Anshul Kamboj, making his IPL debut, was denied Head’s wicket as Nuwan Thushara dropped a sitter in the deep. But the right-arm pacer from Haryana struck soon after by rattling Mayank Agarwal’s stumps. At 90/2 in the 11th over, the visitors would have been hopeful of getting a formidable total. But they ended up losing six wickets for 46 runs from there on as Pandya (3/31) and Piyush Chawla (3/33) delivered standout spells.

Chawla showed his experience by bowling at a flatter trajectory, not allowing the batters to free their arms. The leg-spinner got the key wickets of Head and Heinrich Klaasen to leave SRH tottering at 96/5, before returning later to trap Abdul Samad leg before.

Pandya, meanwhile, got a much-needed confidence boost as he returned his best bowling figures of the season. The 30-year-old conceded 11 runs in his first over but bounced back strongly to get the wickets of Nitish Reddy, Marco Jansen and Shahbaz Ahmed. It took an unbeaten 35 off 17 balls by Cummins to take SRH to a fighting total, but it wasn’t enough in the end.

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