Surya Kumar retooled his “body and mind” to focus on the small things as he recovered from a sports hernia, ankle injury and right knee pain at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru.

“The last three months are a bit difficult to describe,” Surya Kumar told the official IPL website. “It has helped me grow as a person and as a player. For the first two or three weeks. I felt very bored doing the same thing during recovery. After the fourth and fifth week, I realized that It’s important to move on. That was important. To decide how I wanted to come back.”

His recovery involved following a schedule religiously, including eating right, giving his body plenty of rest to aid in its recovery process. He also picked up some things he hadn’t done before, like reading a book.

“When I spoke to my wife, all the people at NCA, they said it should be your second version,” Surya Kumar said. “When you get back on the field, you have to be a little different. I started doing the little things, like going to bed on time, following a good diet.

“I had never read a book in my life, but I started doing that too. Getting up in the morning, spending quality time at the rehab center, focusing on everything, focusing on myself, my mind and Connecting the body to recovery, it helped me recover very well because I had two or three swallows at once.”

Suryakumar admitted to feeling helpless as Mumbai lost their first three games away, but is now ready to hit the ground running for his side.

“It’s always difficult to sit and watch when your team is playing,” he said. “I watched half the games, because I was sleeping on time, from 10-10.30. I would only watch half an innings. Of course, I would watch the whole game the next day.

“It was tough, but it gave me a lot of motivation and encouragement to see them out there playing, and I have to work hard on my recovery to get there as soon as possible.”

How did he feel after his first training session last week?

“I feel that I am here since IPL started,” he said. “I always wanted to be a better version of myself. During the injury I realized the things I needed to work on. I had two to three months to work on my fitness and body. Physios and trainers. Ko – they understood how I wanted to work.”