Ahead of his side's Indian Premier League (IPL) match against Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), star Mumbai Indians (MI) batter Suryakumar Yadav opened up on his "boring" rehabilitation process after sustaining an injury last December in a match against South Africa and how he made changes in his life as he worked his way back to the cricketing field.
RCB and MI will be locking horns in a high-octane clash at Mumbai's Wankhede Stadium, which will be a battle between two of Indian cricket's biggest superstars, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. Both teams are searching for wins.
While MI opened their account after three losses with a win over Delhi Capitals (DC), RCB aims to overcome a three-match losing streak, succumbing to Rajasthan Royals (RR) in their last encounter.
Suryakumar had made a return to competitive cricket, playing against Delhi Capitals in his first competitive cricket game since December.
He was out for a duck but would no doubt be raring to go against RCB. Speaking in a video by the IPL's official X (formerly Twitter) handle, Suryakumar revealed that he was battling two-three niggles together, an ankle injury, sports hernia and an injury to his right knee.
"I had to take one step at a time, follow the small things and here I am, really happy to be on the ground. It is great to be back. Nothing beats the feeling of coming back to Wankhede," said Suryakumar.
The number one ranked T20I batter in the world said that his rehab was boring initially as he felt bored of doing same things again and again, but he eventually realised that rehab was important for him.
A conversation with his wife and people at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) made him work to become the "second version" of himself. To become a lot better, he started to sleep on time and followed a good diet.
"It is actually a little difficult to describe the last three or three-and-a-half months. It was difficult, the first two-three weeks, because I felt it was very boring doing the same things again and again in the rehab," he said.
"But by the fourth-fifth week, I realised that it is important going forward. It was important for me 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 yourself, you have to be a little different when you come back on the field. I started doing all those small things like sleeping on time, following a good diet - that was most important," he concluded.
Suryakumar revealed that he even started reading books, something he had never done before and connected himself physically and mentally to his rehab process to become a better version of himself.
"I (had) never read a book in my life and I started doing that as well. Getting up in the morning, spending a good quality time at the rehab centre and focusing on everything, connecting myself, my brain and my body with the rehab and it helped me well to recover a little faster," he said.
"I wanted to be a better version of myself, when I got injured, I realised what were the things I wanted to work on. I got 2-3 months to work on myself in terms of fitness and on my body as well," he added.
He also said that he would watch only half of the matches of his team so as to sleep on time. "It is always difficult when your team is playing and you are sitting in the room and watching. I cannot say that I did not watch the games, I watched half of the games as I was sleeping on time when I was in Bangalore, at about 10:30pm-10:45pm," said Suryakumar.
"It was difficult but at the same time, it gave me a lot of motivation and inspiration that yes, they are playing there and I have to work really hard on myself and my recovery and get there as soon as possible," he added.
SKY, as he is known to his fans, expressed happiness at being back at his home arena of Wankhede, saying that his first practice session with the team made him feel as if he was there with them right from the start of the tournament.
"My whole cricketing journey started from here and when I entered the hotel and the ground, it never felt (like) that I (had) left this place," he said.
"The first day when I did my practice session with the boys and everyone around, it felt that I was here since the IPL started," he added. Suryakumar expressed his thanks to the NCA staff who helped him in his rehab process.
