One day before his team’s game against the Mumbai Indians, we asked Ravindra Jadeja why he hadn’t been given a bowl yet. The Rajasthan Royals left-arm spinner laughed away the query. “This is Twenty20, thank god I haven’t been asked to bowl.”

The men with the ball in hand have been extras in this format, one that gives all its punchlines to the batsmen. Today, the Mumbai Indians changed the script at the DY Patil Stadium. They dismissed table-toppers Rajasthan Royals for 103 — the lowest score of a team batting first in IPL — and completed a n easy seven-wicket win with 4.5 overs to spare.

The win has not only given the team — languishing at the bottom of the table not so long ago — some momentum, but also gave their bowlers a template to find their feet in this T20 tournament. The lowest scores by teams batting first in the IPL have been 110 by the Deccan Chargers and 109 by Chennai Super Kings.

At Eden Gardens, the wicked wicket was responsible for Hyderabad’s batting collapse while Jaipur saw a freak spell by the freaky Sohail Tanvir wreck Chennai’s line-up. Today, there was nothing hideous about the pitch, nor did any Mumbai bowler run through the side.

Experts have floated the stump-to-stump theory for bowlers when it comes to one-dayers, but in Twenty20 things aren’t that simple. With batsmen dancing down the track and moving around the crease, other avenues needed to be explored. And today, the Mumbai side seemed to have cracked the code.

... contd.