Tilak Varma’s highest score in IPL 2026 before Sunday was 20. Five innings, 43 runs, an average of 8.6. Mumbai Indians had lost four straight, Rohit Sharma wasn’t playing, and GT’s Kagiso Rabada took 3/33 to leave them 46/3 in the sixth over at Ahmedabad. Nobody in the Narendra Modi Stadium expected what happened next.
Two Innings, One Knock
Tilak’s first 22 balls produced 19 runs — a grind, not a rescue. Naman Dhir’s 45 off 32 held up the other end. Then Dhir fell in the 13th over, and Tilak stopped surviving.
He smashed Ashok Sharma for 26 in a single over — three sixes, two fours. Prasidh Krishna’s final over went for 22 more. Last ball of the innings, Tilak on 97: he drilled it to deep square leg for four. 101 not out off 45 balls — equalling Sanath Jayasuriya’s 18-year-old record as the joint-fastest century in MI history. Eight fours, seven sixes, the youngest MI centurion at 23.
MI posted 199/5. GT needed 10 an over on their home ground. They didn’t last 16 overs.
100 All Out
Jasprit Bumrah dismissed Sai Sudharsan off the first ball of the chase — his first wicket of IPL 2026 and his 184th overall, surpassing Dwayne Bravo as the second-highest wicket-taking pacer in IPL history. Shubman Gill, Jos Buttler, Glenn Phillips — all gone inside eight overs. Ashwani Kumar finished with 4/24, Mitchell Santner took 2/16, Allah Ghazanfar added 2/17. GT were bowled out for 100 — their biggest defeat by runs in IPL history.
Tilak outscored the entire opposition. The last IPL batter to do that was KL Rahul, 132 not out against RCB in 2020.
What Now
“Last five games I haven’t had much time in the middle,” Tilak said. “The first 20 balls, I was just batting ball by ball.” Hardik Pandya was more direct: “It was about time.”
MI move to seventh — two wins from six, not playoff form. The Ryan Rickelton and Rohit Sharma opening win feels like a different season. But a team that was spiralling just produced the most dominant result of the tournament, at a ground where they historically struggle, without their greatest player, after their worst stretch of the season. Five innings of nothing, then the joint-fastest century in franchise history. IPL seasons turn on nights exactly like this.