(ESPNCRICINFO) – For a little while, it looked like Suryakumar Yadav would actually finish a T20 without playing that one shot that made people’s jaws drop. And then he hit the most incredible six. It propelled him to his first IPL century and Mumbai Indians to a comfortable victory over the defending champions Gujarat Titans.

You know how Kane Williamson dabs to third man to get singles? Well, Suryakumar accessed the same area, except he cleared the boundary. He saw a ball on off stump. He knew he could get under it. At the point where he made contact, he opened the face, just as Williamson does, and then the strengthen in his forearms and his wrists did the rest.

This is Suryakumar. He sees T20 cricket the way nobody else sees it.

Titans came into this game knowing a win would not only secure a spot in the playoffs but give them two shots at making the final.

And they turned to their main man to make it happen. Rashid Khan produced four wickets for 30 runs in a format that continues to be hostile to his kind. Even today, Suryakumar spent 49 balls proving that bowlers and their plans exist just so batters could come in and rip them all to shreds.

But Rashid wouldn’t buy that. He had Rohit Sharma caught at slip with a gorgeous leg-break. He upended Ishan Kishan by a simple change in length, the premeditated sweep shot failing against a ball that was too full for it. Titans saved the last six balls they had from Rashid for the match up against Tim David. Those are high stakes. It was the 17th over. This is the time David comes to life. Except he couldn’t because Rashid took him out for 5 off 3.

Very few are capable of producing wickets on demand like this. Even fewer are able to do so when the opposition comes hard at them.

As good as Titans are in a chase, they were up against it very quickly when all of their top three batters fell for single digits. Shubman Gill, Hardik Pandya and Wriddhiman Saha totalled 12 runs between them.

Vijay Shankar kept hopes of the improbable alive with a sweet little cameo. But he fell to Piyush Chawla’s first ball of the match, this IPL legend having the best season of his career at 34 years of age.

Way on the other end of the spectrum is Akash Madhwal. He came into the tournament because Mumbai were having so much trouble with their bowling attack. This was only his fourth game of the IPL and the 26th of his T20 career. And already he has shown an appetite for the tough job. Bowling at the death, bowling to big hitters, bowling with games on the line.

Madhwal has a lovely yorker. And now, it appears his other balls are just as deadly, because when he hits a hard length, they keep skidding through. He bowled Gill with one that stayed lower than the batter expected. And he had David Miller lbw in just the same way.

Rashid carried the Titans with the bat as well, making his highest score in T20s, 79 off 32 with 10 sixes. A total of 103 for 8 in 14 overs rose to 191 for 8 in 20. But it was not enough. Imagine going three-fourth of the way to a century after picking up one short of five wickets and still losing the game.