It was only 11 overs each, but Rajasthan Royals still found room for a mini-onslaught. Yashasvi Jaiswal’s unbeaten 77 from 32 balls and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s 39 off 14 pushed Royals to 150-plus at a damp Guwahati on Tuesday, a total that proved a touch too steep for Mumbai Indians.
“Yeah, I think we had some plans, but I don’t think, being honest, that we ever executed those plans the way we wanted,” admitted Mumbai head coach Mahela Jayawardene minutes after the defeat.
Rain trimmed the match and, in truth, narrowed the margin for error. Royals collected 22 from Deepak Chahar’s opening over and were 80 for 1 after five. Mumbai did claw back — only 52 came between overs six and ten and just 18 off the last — yet the early damage lingered.
“The margins are very small. The guys are batting really well. We knew the danger especially when the rain [curtailed the game to 11 over per side] and you have the license to go up front. So we needed to make sure that first four, five overs were crucial for us. I thought we pulled very well to get back from the start that they had and yeah, I think we missed our lengths, we missed our lines, and they played really, really well,” Jayawardene added.
Sooryavanshi’s cameo felt decisive. Walking in at No.3, he belted Jasprit Bumrah’s very first delivery straight back over mid-on, a shot that had former South Africa quick Dale Steyn almost wincing on the TimeOut show.
“I think that’s what he’s done. I mean, honestly, he’s created and instilled the fear into bowlers that he’s going to hit you for boundaries,” Steyn said, revisiting the moment. “That delivery from Bumrah. That’s in the slot. That’s so rare of Bumrah. So even the great Bumrah is thinking in the back of his mind: ‘don’t get it wrong; because if I get it wrong, this guy’s going to hit me for six’.”
That mental squeeze, Steyn reckons, is half the battle won: “I feel, if you think like that, more often than not, you do get it wrong,” he continued. “You can see even when he’s hit him for six, he [Bumrah] almost started to laugh afterwards and then go, ‘I knew that was going to happen if I got it wrong’. And that’s exactly what happened.”
The numbers back Steyn’s instinct. Sooryavanshi has now cleared the ropes once every 4.2 balls this season, and he rarely waits for a genuine half-volley. Bowlers, even the tidy ones, are being forced into defensive lines very early.
“And this kid’s not scared, man. If you miss a half-volley, he’s going to hit you out of the ground. So drag your length back and hit a good length and you might be on the money with him. Miss and you’re travelling the distance. It doesn’t matter who you are, Bumrah or Joe Average. You know, so that’s fantastic batting,” Steyn concluded.
Aaron Finch, sitting alongside Steyn, tried to decode Bumrah’s intentions: “I think he’s looking for an inswinging yorker first,” the former Australia captain suggested, noting that the margin for a full ball is now “barely the width of a credit card”.
Royals’ 151 for 2 left Mumbai needing nearly 14 an over. Rohit Sharma flickered briefly, but a succession of miscued attempts at the short square boundaries kept the chase from ever settling. The visitors closed 18 short.
From Mumbai’s point of view there were small consolations — tidy overs from Piyush Chawla in the middle, another quick cameo from Tim David — yet none disguised the broader theme: if the new-ball burst goes awry, catching up inside 66 lawful deliveries is brutal.
For Royals, it is two wins from three and, perhaps more significantly, another evening where Jaiswal and Sooryavanshi operated as complementary rather than competing forces. Jaiswal’s angles behind square mixed neatly with Sooryavanshi’s straight-line hitting, forcing Mumbai to protect everywhere at once.
The tournament moves on quickly — Mumbai are back in action in forty-eight hours — and there is no sense of panic. But there is, unmistakably, the Sooryavanshi effect: even the most reliable white-ball seamer in the world knows one misjudged length could end up in the lower tier.
