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Mumbai | Skipper Suryakumar Yadav dragged India out of the mire with an unbeaten 84 as defending champions managed a sub-par 161/9 on a day of collective batting failure against a plucky USA in their tournament-opener, here on Saturday.

Suryakumar stood tall with a 49-ball innings studded with 10 fours and four sixes, single-handedly driving India out of woods after a stunning collapse saw them reeling at 77 for six in the 13th over.

South Africa born Shadley van Schalkwyk returned with figures of 4-0-25-4 as India’s famed batting line-up, barring Suryakumar, endured a horrendous outing with the bat and were in real trouble of being restricted for an under-par total.

The writing was perhaps on the wall when India failed to find a run on the first four balls of the innings with USA not giving any room for the Indian batters to free their arms.

While Ishan Kishan (20) smacked a six off the fifth ball to get rolling, the first blow to India came when Abhishek Sharma fell for a first-ball duck in the second over.

The world No. 1 Abhishek hit Ali Khan’s delivery straight to Sanjay Krishnamurthi at deep cover, and for the first of the several times in the night the Wankhede Stadium fell silent. The fielding set by US skipper Monank Patel was top notch as he positioned fielders straighter than finer.

Tilak Varma (25) broke the shackles when he danced down to hit a straight off Saurabh Netravalkar in the third over and went after van Schalkwyk for three fours in the next and it looked like India were finally up and running.

However, Ishan, having smacked Ali off his pads for a spectacular six, failed to make the most of a dropped catch and hit one straight to mid-on off van Schalkwyk on the first ball of the sixth over.

Van Schalkwyk couldn’t believe his luck when Tilak failed to time a pull off a short ball off one that rose more than he expected, giving catching practice to USA captain Monank Patel.

Shivam Dube (0) is no stranger to the Wankhede wicket but the burly all-rounder was totally outfoxed by an innocuous slow bouncer failing to check his stroke.

Looking completely clueless, Dube was caught in an awkward approach during the time of connection with the ball flying to Netravalkar at short fine leg.

Rinku Singh (6 off 14 balls) couldn’t control his first attacking stroke which went straight to long-on off Mohammad Mohsin (4-0-16-1). Hardik Pandya (5) fell to former Mumbai left-arm spinner Harmeet Singh (4-0-26-2) while trying to clear the sweeper cover, and Axar Patel (14) in his bid to get some late quick runs.

With the onus of getting India out of trouble once again solely on him, Suryakumar dug in deep to farm the strike and rarely missed connecting on the shots that have been his trademark.

Being the only Indian batter to have understood the nature of the wicket completely, Suryakumar opened up finally in the last two overs. He collected 34 runs off those, which included 21 in the last from Netravalkar.