Tilak Varma's 45-ball 101 not out and Ashwani four-fer hand Mumbai a 99-run win at the Narendra Modi Stadium
Mumbai Indians did not just stop a four-match losing run on Monday night in Ahmedabad. They ended it with the kind of statement performance that turns a season around in the space of three hours, riding Tilak Varma's maiden IPL century and a four-wicket return from Ashwani Kumar to a 99-run win over Gujarat Titans.
Shubman Gill won the toss at the Narendra Modi Stadium and put Mumbai in. For the first 15 balls of the powerplay, that looked like the right call. Kagiso Rabada was sharp and full, and MI's top order obliged him by losing three wickets inside six overs to slip to 46 for 3. Rohit Sharma was again missing through his hamstring strain, debutants Danish Malewar and Krish Bhagat were thrown straight in, and the chase for a respectable total looked like it would have to come the hard way.
That is when Tilak Varma decided to play the innings of his short Mumbai career.
He did not start at a sprint. Through the first 22 deliveries he made 19, taking his time, working out a pitch that had something for the bowlers. From ball 23 onwards he was a different cricketer. The next 23 balls produced 82 runs and a hundred that ranks alongside anything an MI batter has ever played at this stadium. Eight fours and seven sixes, the last of them taking him to 101 not out off 45 balls. That is the joint-fastest century in Mumbai Indians history, level with Sanath Jayasuriya's 45-ball hundred against Chennai Super Kings at the Wankhede in 2008.
Naman Dhir's 45 gave him the platform. Tilak Varma did the rest, and Mumbai finished on 199 for 5.
Ashwani's return turns a chase into a procession
Even 199 felt like par on a ground where Gujarat have chased down everything. The first ball of the reply changed that. Jasprit Bumrah ripped one back into the splice, and Sai Sudharsan was on his way for a duck before he had a chance to settle. Bumrah set the tempo, but the headline act of the second innings was a 24-year-old left-arm seamer playing his first match of the season.
Ashwani Kumar was brought back into the XI as a reinforcement and walked away with four wickets. He had Gill caught for 14, Rahul Tewatia for 8, and then in his second spell finished off the lower middle order, accounting for both Rashid Khan and Shahrukh Khan. Mitchell Santner chipped in with a double-strike of his own, removing Washington Sundar and Glenn Phillips in the same over.
There was no recovery, no late hitting, no rear-guard. Gujarat were bowled out for 100 in the 16th over, and the 99-run margin is the kind of result Hardik Pandya needed after a fortnight in which his captaincy had been picked over from every angle.
What it does for both sides
Mumbai move up to seventh in the table after a run that had Hardik fielding questions about the captaincy at every press conference. They still have work to do. Rohit's fitness is the obvious next storyline, with the bowling coaches indicating he is close to returning, and the top order is still over-reliant on Tilak Varma to bail it out from a slow start.
For Gujarat, this is a first proper warning sign of the season. They had been the team to beat for most of April, with Gill leading from the front and Rabada and Mohammed Siraj giving them control with the new ball. To lose so heavily at home, after winning the toss and bowling first, suggests Gujarat have problems further down the batting order that have been masked by their recent form. A target of 200 should not produce an all-out total of 100, no matter how well an opposition bowler is bowling.
The bigger picture is that the IPL 2026 race for the playoffs has just been thrown wide open again. Mumbai are back in it. Gujarat have a few questions to answer.
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