Tilak Varma played an innings for the ages as his maiden IPL hundred turned the corner for the Mumbai Indians, with the five-time champions crushing the Gujarat Titans by 99 runs in Ahmedabad on Monday.
Spurred by captain Hardik Pandya’s ‘hard talk’, asking him to get a move on during the strategic break after he scratched his way to 19 off 22 deliveries, Tilak changed gears in a flash to amass 82 off the next 23 balls and finish on an unbeaten 101 off 45 deliveries.
Mumbai Indians’ 199/5 was more than enough as Jasprit Bumrah broke his wicketless streak of five games with a first-ball dismissal of Sai Sudharsan and GT never recovered, getting all out for a paltry 100 in less than 16 overs.
The introduction of left-arm pacer Ashwani Kumar proved
decisive as he snared 4/24 to run through the middle order along with Mitchell Santner (2/16 in 3 overs).
The loss to MI also exposed the chinks in GT’s armoury, their fragile middle order, where they have carried two ‘non-performing assets’ in Rahul Tewatia and M Shahrukh Khan for the longest time.
Between them, they faced 24 deliveries and scored only 25 runs and it is baffling to see head coach Ashish Nehra placing so much faith in the mediocre duo.
The victory after four straight losses took the Mumbai Indians to seventh place in the points table, but more importantly, it improved their net run rate (+0.067).
MI looked like a different outfit until the 14th over when the second strategic time-out was taken. After that, Tilak did the unthinkable to give the total respectability, which had looked improbable after the power play, thanks to an intimidating first spell by Kagiso Rabada.
At the strategic time-out after the 14th over, TV cameras caught captain Pandya saying something to Tilak, who had looked unconvincing until that point and was booed by the Motera crowd.
But after that break, one saw the Tilak that one has always known, as he threw the kitchen sink at GT’s fastest bowlers. Prasidh Krishna went for 19 and new pace sensation Ashok Sharma was toyed with for 26 runs.
Before Monday’s knock, Tilak’s poor form was one of the talking points, as he had managed only 43 runs in his previous five outings. In all, he smacked eight boundaries and seven sixes on the day, with a few over covers and some hit straight down the ground.
Pandya (15 off 16 balls) did push Tilak, but hardly did anything of note himself in their 81-run partnership off only 38 balls. The last six overs yielded 96 runs, largely because of the ever-inconsistent Prasidh Krishna (1/54 in 4 overs), who gave away 41 in his final two overs.
This was after Rabada (3/33 in 4 overs) got the ball to seam at a quick clip as he blew the top order away inside the powerplay to ensure that it would be another day of a below-par total for the five-time champions, who had looked out of sorts until then.
Rabada, rated as one of the legends of his generation alongside Pat Cummins, Bumrah and Josh Hazlewood, bowled the ‘Test match length’, faster and fuller and attacked the stumps to get three wickets.
Danish Malewar (2) understood the gulf between domestic and world-class bowling as he could not get his bat down in time and Rabada rapped him on the pads, plumb in front.
Quinton de Kock (13 off 11 balls) played a rasping square cut when Rabada gave him width, but a short ball saw him balloon a pull shot, which the bowler collected gleefully.
The best dismissal was the one where he set up out-of-form India T20I captain Suryakumar Yadav (15 off 10 balls). Surya had clipped Rabada for a six into the cow corner and straight-drove him for a four.
Rabada came back with a banger, a 152 kmph ball pitched up on the fourth-stump line that cut back. There was no visible footwork and the bat was away from the body as it breached his defence to peg the stump back.
Naman Dhir, who scored a half-century in the last match, resurrected the innings. He used Ashok Sharma’s pace to get two fours and kept pushing the scoreboard, although he never dominated the attack.
It was only after the strategic break that Tilak changed gears and played the most memorable innings of his IPL career. It was the fastest century for the Mumbai Indians in the history of the tournament.
(With PTI Inputs)
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