Yusuf Pathan falls agonisingly short

The second-fastest Twenty20 hundred, a 37-ball assault from Yusuf Pathan, as delicate as it was brutal, wasn't enough on a day in which precious little was contributed by the other Rajasthan Royals players.

The it's-good-to-be-back ad campaign of the IPL could well have been meant exclusively for Yusuf. In his first innings back in India, he shook a dying match up and gave Mumbai a right scare. The Yusuf show began when Rajasthan needed 143 off 57. He scored 54 off the next 11 balls he faced, 26 other deliveries got him 46, and when he finally got out he left Rajasthan 40 to get off 17 deliveries.

Of the nine fours and eight sixes he hit in a frenetic period of play, three shots stood out - and they were not sixes. The length deliveries and full tosses were all murdered, but in the 13th over - he was 57 off 22 by then - Ryan McLaren bowled a decent enough yorker to him. Yusuf opened the face late, beautifully late, and guided it for four. The next ball was not more than a couple of inches short of being a yorker, but on the stumps, and he managed to get under it, and still hit it to long-off for four. The third yorker of the over was neither wide nor straight, in between, and he leaned back to make space and steered it even later than the one before. More brutal hits preceded a moment of inspiration for Mumbai.