The Suryakumar Yadav trick to dismantling spin bowling

Ravi Bishnoi must have thought he had bowled a good ball. It was 4.81m in length, quick and at the stumps. Suryakumar Yadav slog-swept it for a six.

Usually 4-6m is considered the good length for spinners, but as pitches have become truer and hitting quality has improved, 6-7m has become the go-to zone for the spinners. For Bishnoi in IPL 2025, 6-7m has been the defensive good length, 5-6m normal good length, and 4-5m his attacking good length. Before this match he had bowled 56 balls in 5-6m band for 8.57 runs an over and three wickets, 43 in 6-7m for just 6.84 per over with no wicket, and 36 balls from 4 to 5m for 10.67 per over and four wickets.

Bishnoi perhaps thought he could try that attacking good length, but travelled. In his next over, Bishnoi went to his defensive short length, at 6.99m, but Suryakumar still slog-swept him for a six. Spinners can generally bank on Indian batters to take just the single off this length, especially given the line attacking the stumps. Not Suryakumar.

Later in the over, Suryakumar swept a four off 5.74m. Eight good-length balls to Suryakumar in two Bishnoi overs had gone for 23 runs. He can play all kinds of sweep: reverse, paddle, scoop, hard square sweep, hard sweep in front of square, slog sweep, along the ground and in the air, from point to cow corner. It makes the job of the spinner extremely difficult.

Suryakumar didn't get to face much of the other spinner, Digvesh Rathi, but Suryakumar won Mumbai Indians the middle overs as they notched their fifth win in a row. Perhaps because he didn't get much of Rathi, he went down to sweep Prince Yadav, but ended up turning a short ball into a bouncer. He hooked it for a six nonetheless.

With his 28-ball 54 against Lucknow Super Giants, Suryakumar has taken his tally to 427 runs.

Most Indian batters pace themselves. They are happy to play out good balls from spinners for singles. They look to make up when there is pace on the ball. Not Suryakumar. He has been scoring at 11.59 against 4-5m length, 10.15 against 5-6 and 6.46 against 6-7m. Among the 44 batters who have faced 20 or more length balls from spinners this IPL, only Shimron Hetmyer, Nicholas Pooran and Travis Head have been quicker.

Suryakumar's role is extra important because MI overall haven't been that good against spin. As a team, they have been the fourth-slowest against spin. They desperately need Suryakumar to disrupt the spinners. They need someone to win them the middle overs, forget the bowling style. Someone to score boundaries off good balls like he did against Bishnoi. Or against Noor Ahmad and Ravindra Jadeja two matches ago. Among those who have faced 60 or more balls in the middle overs this IPL, only Pooran has been quicker than Suryakumar's strike rate of 181.28.

Suryakumar has done all this with the near illegal consistency of crossing 25 in each of the ten matches in this IPL. Clearly, Bishnoi is not the first who might think he has bowled a good ball, but has been hit away by Suryakumar without taking undue risk. Nor will he be the last.