By Prakash Nair 
Guwahati, April 7: They waited three hours in the rain. Then Vaibhav Sooryavanshi hit Jasprit Bumrah for a six off the very first ball Bumrah bowled. And just like that, every minute of waiting was worth it.
Rajasthan Royals have posted 150 for 3 in their 11 overs. Mumbai Indians need 151 to win.
That is not just a big score for an 11-over game. That is a demolition job.
The First Ball Moment Everyone Came For
People had been talking about this match-up all day. Sooryavanshi versus Bumrah. First time in professional cricket. The 15-year-old against the best bowler in the world.
Bumrah did not open the bowling. He came on a little later. And the moment he ran in for his first delivery, the entire stadium held its breath.
Sooryavanshi hit it into the stands.
Not a flick. Not a cheeky scoop. A proper, clean, powerful six off one of the fastest and most accurate bowlers on the planet. First ball. No hesitation. No nerves. Just a teenager from Vadodara doing what he has been doing since he was twelve years old.
The crowd, the same crowd that sat through three hours of hailstones and flooded outfield, went absolutely berserk.
The Powerplay Was Carnage
RR won the toss no wait, Mumbai Indians won the toss and chose to field. They probably thought that was the smart call. Get the bowlers into the game early on a night pitch with some residual moisture. Make RR bat and see if the conditions help.
What happened instead was 59 runs off the powerplay. In 3.2 overs.
That is not a powerplay score. That is a statement. It is the kind of number that makes a fielding captain wonder if the toss was actually a good idea.
Sooryavanshi and Jaiswal came out swinging from the first delivery. Both of them. At the same time. Against an attack that includes Jasprit Bumrah and Trent Boult. The two most dangerous new-ball bowlers Mumbai Indians own.
It did not matter. The boundary rope got used a lot in those first 20 balls.
Jaiswal Took Over And Never Stopped
When Sooryavanshi eventually got out, the game barely slowed down. Because Yashasvi Jaiswal was still there.
By the time the 11th over finished, Jaiswal was unbeaten on 77 off just 32 balls. Read that again. Seventy-seven runs. Thirty-two balls. In a game that only has 66 balls per innings.
That means Jaiswal scored more than half the team’s total practically by himself. And he did it with a strike rate that would have been extraordinary in a 20-over game, let alone a condensed 11-over slugfest.
This was not slapping and hoping. Jaiswal picked his targets, chose his moments, and executed shot after shot with the kind of clarity that comes from knowing exactly what you are doing. He has been in outstanding touch this entire IPL season and tonight he was operating at a completely different level to everyone else on the field.
He was still not out at the end. Unbeaten. After the highest-scoring innings anyone played tonight by a distance.
Parag And The Lower Order
Riyan Parag did not waste his time at the crease either. Nine balls, 20 runs. In an 11-over game that is a perfectly calibrated cameo. He came in, assessed the situation in approximately two deliveries, and then played his shots.
The three wickets RR lost did not really slow them down because the runs were coming so fast that even when batters fell, the score was already so deep into the game that it did not matter.
This is what makes this RR batting line-up so frightening right now. They have openers who can win a match in the powerplay. They have a middle-order captain who understands tempo. And they have Jaiswal threading it all together with absolute consistency.
What Bumrah And The MI Bowlers Could Do
Nobody had a great night with the ball for the Mumbai Indians. But credit where it is due, Hardik Pandya was the one MI bowler who at least put up some kind of resistance.
Hardik bowled two overs for 17 runs. In a match where 150 was scored in 11 overs, conceding 17 in two is actually respectable. He was tight when everyone else was leaking. He hit his lengths, kept it straight, and at least gave MI’s chase a fighting chance by not adding even more to that total.
Bumrah tried. He really did. But 32 runs in three overs on a night like this, against batters playing like this, is just how it went. The conditions had settled completely by the time play started, the dew was on the ball, and two batters who were in the form of their lives were hitting everything they wanted to hit.
There are no moral victories in cricket, but if there were, Hardik’s bowling performance tonight would be one.
What MI Needs to Do
151 runs in 11 overs. It has been done before in T20 cricket. But not easily, not often, and not usually in a pressure match with this much at stake.
Mumbai Indians have the batting to go after this. Rohit Sharma at the top. Ryan Rickelton. Suryakumar Yadav. Hardik Pandya is down the order. These are serious players with serious power-hitting ability.
But they will need something close to what Jaiswal just did. They need someone to come out and take the game on from ball one and keep going until the last delivery.
Under the Guwahati lights, late on a Tuesday night, RR have given MI a mountain to climb.
The crowd who refused to go home in the rain has just watched 150 runs in 11 overs. They are not leaving now either.
Stay ahead with Hindustan Herald — bringing you trusted news, sharp analysis, and stories that matter across Politics, Business, Technology, Sports, Entertainment, Lifestyle, and more.
Connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, YouTube, and join our Telegram community @hindustanherald for real-time updates.
Sports reporter covering cricket, football, and Olympic disciplines, with on-ground event experience.
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
