With Jasprit Bumrah and Tymal Mills -- two of the finest T20 death bowlers -- at their disposal, Mumbai Indians fancied their chances in the closing stages of their IPL 2022 match against the Kolkata Knight Riders in Pune on Wednesday.
But the five-time IPL champions were shell-shocked as an unlikely contender in Pat Cummins stole their thunder with his batting blitzkrieg at the Maharashtra Cricket Association stadium in Pune with an unbeaten 56 from 15 balls.
The momentum was firmly with MI as the reliable Nitish Rana (8) and the dangerous Andre Russell (11) were dismissed in the space of 10 deliveries. MI looked the favourites at that stage of the game with 61 needed from 41 balls.
But the script changed completely with Cummins' arrival in the middle. While Venkatesh Iyer took 41 balls to complete his 50 on a sluggish pitch difficult for strokemaking, there were no such problems for Cummins who blasted his way to the half-century mark in just 14 balls -- to equal the record for the fastest fifty in IPL.
Cummins got warmed up nicely as the second ball he faced from Mills was flicked over square leg for a six followed by a boundary past point off the next delivery.
Realising Cummins's intent to take on the bowlers, the well-set Venkatesh was content to turn the strike over with singles.
Bumrah also suffered at the hands of the Australia Test captain. Cummins swung the full delivery from the India pacer for a six over midwicket before he steered a wide yorker past short third man for a four.
26 runs had come from 11 balls since Cummins arrived at the wicket, but MI still fancied their chances as KKR needed 35 from the last five overs with five wickets in hand.
One wicket or two would expose the KKR tailenders against Bumrah and Mills, but Cummins wasn't in the mood to take things so far.
His fellow-Australian left-arm pacer Daniel Sams was shown no mercy as Cummins took him to the cleaners. Sams was clobbered for 35 runs in the 16th over, with Cummins hitting four sixes and two fours, to finish off the match in grand style, with four overs to spare.
Such was Cummins's domination that the well-set Venkatesh was reduced to the role of spectator as the Indian contributed just five runs to their match-winning partnership of 61 runs from just 18 balls.
