Anurag Kumar
Yashasvi Jaiswal would have strolled into the Wankhede Stadium, on that hard and flat deck of his home city, licking his lips on Sunday, given the form he has shown in this IPL season. After enhancing Rajasthan Royals’ (RR) batting performance against Mumbai Indians (MI) with a magnificent century, the Mumbai native strolled off with his bat and helmet raised and bowed.
The left-handed opener’s 124 (62b, 16×4, 8×6) represented more than fifty percent of the visitors’ 212/7, which was insufficient. Suryakumar Yadav’s authoritative 29-ball 55 gave MI wings, and Tim David’s audacious 45 not out in 14 deliveries carried them home with three balls and six wickets to spare. With 17 required from the final over bowled by Jason Holder, the large Australian completed the match with three consecutive sixes.
Jaiswal began his first IPL century with a pair of sixes, the second off Jofra Archer soaring out of the stadium. Archer was on target with his pace (two 148kph deliveries to Jaiswal stood out), but not with his line to Jos Buttler, who required eight deliveries to score a run. Jaiswal made amends by smashing Riley Meredith for four fours in a single over, including several precise drives, as RR raced to 58 in five overs.
Piyush Chawla was pivotal in reversing the visitors’ momentum by getting Buttler to hole out and Devdutt Padikkal caught off a googly, while Arshad Khan dismissed Sanju Samson.
By then, with RR 103/3 after 11 overs, Jaiswal had reached fifty off 32 balls. He only added 21 more for the next fifty. As enterprising was the left-hander’s shotmaking, reverse-sweeping Chawla for six and prancing down for four. Thus, as MI continued to make advancements, Jaiswal kept RR moving forward. Also at the end, he punished Meredith for three consecutive fours that propelled him into the three-figure bracket in the 18th over. Then, he dismissed Archer for consecutive sixes over mid-off and square leg.
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Rohit Sharma, the captain of the home team, was dismissed in the second over by a slower delivery from Sandeep Sharma that cut away and left him flummoxed. During a 58-run surge, Cameron Green (44, 26b) assaulted Trent Boult and swept R Ashwin for six. Ishan Kishan holed out to a wide delivery from Ashwin, and Green was bowled by a full ball as MI crossed 100 in the eleventh over.
Yadav began his innings by smacking Ashwin for six with the first delivery he faced, and then proceeded to hit boundaries at will. Kuldeep Sen bore the brunt of Yadav’s arsenal as he ripped him for six, four, four, and five not out in the 13th over, which also saw Tilak Varma’s LBW overturned. Sandeep, racing backwards from short fine leg, plucked Yadav’s top edge off Boult out of thin air with 61 needed off 27. David and Varma however found two boundaries in every subsequent over until David’s three sixes secured the game.
