NEW DELHI: The world's best T20 batsman
Suryakumar Yadav
is back to cricketing action after four months - a break forced by sports hernia injury.
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With Mumbai Indians set to play a crucial clash against
Royal Challengers Bengaluru
on Thursday, the official handle of the IPL shared a video of Suryakumar talking about his comeback.
The video is titled: 'Wanted to be a better version of myself post injury'.
The videos starts with SKY saying, "It's great to be back, but most importantly, nothing beats the feeling of getting back at the
Wankhede
."
Talking about his time off the game,
Surya
says, "It's actually a litter difficult to describe the last three, three and a half months, it has helped me grow as a person, grow as an athlete. It was difficult for first two-three weeks because I felt very boring doing the same things again and again, the rehab, but then the fourth week fifth week, I realized it's important going forward because it's very important for me firstly to decide how I wanted to come back."
"When I spoke to my wife and all the people at
NCA
, they said it has to be a second version of you. You have to be a little different when you come back on the field and in terms of that I started doing all the small small things like sleeping on time, following a good diet, that was most important. I had never read a book in my life, but I started doing that as well, getting up in the morning, spending a good quality time at the rehab centre and focussing on everything, connecting my brain, my body, myself with the rehab and it really helped to recover a little faster because I had two-three niggles together - sports hernia, ankle and right knee, so I had to take one step at a time, follow small small things and here I am, really happy to be on the ground," Surya added.
Talking about his comeback to his home ground the
Wankhede Stadium
, SKY said, "Always exciting to come back to this place because everything started from here, my whole cricketing journey started from here and when I entered the hotel, entered the ground, it never felt that I left this place. The first day I did my practice session with the boys and everyone around, it felt that I was here since the IPL started."
"If you're playing this sport, you have to work hard, there's no substitute to hard work but as I said in the beginning I wanted to be a better version of myself. When I got injured I realized what were the things OI wanted to work on because I got 2-3 months to work on myself in terms of fitness and everything on my body as well, so I really pushed hard at that time," SKY added.
Talking about his rehab at the NCA, SKY said, "I am really grateful to the support staff at NCA, everyone, right from the trainers, physios, everyone, who took care of me right from the morning. For a few days I was feeling angry to do the rehab, but they took it in their stride and they understood really well how I wanted to work, really grateful to them."
"See it's always difficult when your team is playing and you're sitting in the room and watching the game. I can't say I didn't watch the game, I watched half the game because I was sleeping on time when I was in Bangalore at about 10:30-10:45. So I used to watch only half of the innings and of course I used to watch the whole game the next day in the highlights. It was difficult but at the same time but at the same time it gave me a lot of motivation and inspiration looking at them (teammates) that yes, they are playing there and I have to work really hard on myself, on my recovery and get there as soon as possible," SKY concluded.
Suryakumar recently got clearance from the National Cricket Academy (NCA) after undergoing rehabilitation for sports hernia surgery in December, and returned to Mumbai Indians IPL 2024 match against Delhi Capitals on Sunday at the Wankhede Stadium.
But the big-hitter's return turned out to be a damp squib as he fell for a two-ball duck even though the five-time champions registered their first win of the tournament.
With one victory from four matches, five-time champions Mumbai Indians are at the 8th spot, one spot above RCB, in the points table.
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