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Mumbai Indians suffered their first defeat of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi when they couldn't defend 162 runs against Delhi Capitals on Saturday and the stand-in captain of MI, Suryakumar Yadav, felt they remained 15-20 runs short of a good score.
Speaking during the post-match presentation, Suryakumar said, "I mean, when you're batting first, there's nothing like thinking about the score. You just keep batting, understand the stats, what's good, what has been good here, but we felt 180-185 was a good score. We felt short by 15-20 runs. I think it was a decent wicket. We expected it to be a little on the slower side, but still, from a batting point of view, we were a little short of 15-20 runs, but I don't want to take any credit away from the bowlers, and also their batters batted really well in the second innings." Suryakumar was leading the MI side in the absence of the full-time skipper Hardik Pandya, who was unwell. MI were asked to bat first, and they were restricted to 162/6 despite a 51-run knock from the stand-in captain. Naman Dhir also contributed with a 21-ball 28 before T Natarajan got him caught out by Tristan Stubbs. Speaking about MI's batting, Surya said, "I think me and Naman, we both got out at the wrong time, otherwise we would have at least got above par. I mean absolutely, see, there'll be days like this when you try, and it won't work, but we will go back to the drawing board, work hard and come back in the next few days." Mukesh Kumar took a couple of wickets, whereas Patel, Natarajan, Ngidi and Nigam shared one wicket each. Chasing a modest target of 163 runs, Sameer Rizvi made 90 runs off 51 balls to take his side past the winning line comfortably. 90 runs by Rizvi is the second-highest individual score by an impact player in IPL behind 107* runs by Jos Buttler against KKR at Eden Gardens in 2024. Rizvi's 90 is also the third-highest score by a DC batter against MI in IPL after 95 not out by Virender Sehwag in 2013 and 91 not out by Jason Roy in 2018. Seven sixes by him is also the joint-most by a DC batter hit against MI alongside Rishabh Pant in 2019 and Tristan Stubbs in 2024. The MI captain praised Rizvi and said, "I mean, at 7 for 2, someone coming in like that and batting the way he batted, I think a lot of credit goes to him. He never let us come into the game. We tried our best to follow all the things what was there in the bowling department, but we couldn't come back." (ANI)
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