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Ahmedabad: Tilak Varma played a knock for the ages as his maiden IPL century turned the corner for the Mumbai Indians with the five-time champions crushing Gujarat Titans by 99 runs here on Monday.

Spurred by skipper 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 balls, Tilak changed gears in a flash to amass 82 off the next 23 deliveries and end on an unbeaten 101 off 45 balls.

Mumbai Indians’ 199 for 5 was good enough as Jasprit Bumrah broke his wicket-less streak for five matches with a first-ball dismissal of Sai Sudharsan and GT never recovered from there to get all out for 100 in 15.5 overs.

The introduction of left-arm seamer Ashwani Kumar proved to be decisive as he snared 4 for 24 to run through the middle-order along with Mitchell Santner (2/16 in 3 overs).

The defeat also exposed the chinks in GT’s armoury, especially 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 played 24 balls and scored only 25 runs and it is baffling to see head coach Ashish Nehra placing so much faith in the mediocre duo.

The win, after four straight defeats, took the Mumbai Indians to seventh place in the points table, but more importantly, it improved their net run rate significantly (+0.067).

MI looked a different outfit till the 14th over when the second strategic time out was taken. Post that, Tilak did the unthinkable to give the total respectability, which looked improbable after the powerplay thanks to an intimidating first spell by Kagiso Rabada.

At the strategic time-out post 14th over, TV cameras caught skipper Pandya animatedly telling something to Tilak, who had looked unconvincing till that point of time and was occasionally 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 innings, Tilak’s poor form was one of the talking points as he managed only 43 in the previous five outings. In all, he hit eight fours and seven sixes on the day, with a few over covers and some hit down the ground.

Pandya (15 off 16 balls) did push Tilak but hardly did anything of note himself in their 81-run stand off only 38 balls. The last six overs yielded 96 runs, largely due to 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 powerplay to ensure that it would be another day of below par total for the five-time champions who had been looking completely 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, fuller and attacked the stumps to get three wickets.

Danish Malewar (2) understood the gulf between domestic and world class bowling as he couldn’t get his bat down on 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 certainly was the one where he set up out-of-form India T20I skipper Suryakumar Yadav (15 off 10 balls). Surya had clipped Rabada for a six into the cow corner and straight drove him for a boundary.

Rabada came back with a banger — a 152 kmph delivery pitched up on fourth stump line that cut back sharply. There was no visible footwork and the bat was away from the body as it breached through the defence to peg the stump back.

Naman Dhir, who scored a fifty in the last game, resurrected the innings. He used Ashok Sharma’s pace to get a couple of boundaries and kept pushing the scoreboard although he never dominated the attack.

It was only post the strategic break that Tilak suddenly changed gears and played the most memorable knock of his IPL career. It was the fastest hundred for Mumbai Indians in the history of the tournament.