Pacer Sandeep Sharma took his maiden IPL five-for in his comeback game first up. Thereafter, Yashasvi Jaiswal (104 not out off 60 balls) finally converted a good start as the Rajasthan Royals brushed aside Mumbai Indians by nine wickets with eight balls to spare at the Sawai Man Singh Stadium in Jaipur on Monday, moving a step closer to the playoffs.

For MI, they are seventh following their fifth loss from eight matches.

Sharma has never come across as a tearaway quick. In terms of his India experience, it has been confined to just a couple of T20Is against Zimbabwe in Harare way back in 2015. But in the IPL, one cannot just write him off.

Sharma proved so again with his accuracy after almost a month, having recovered from a side strain. The 30-year-old finished with 5/18 off his four overs that was key to restricting MI to 179/9 on a pretty good surface for batting.

Thereafter, Jaiswal and Jos Buttler (35), fresh from his incredible unbeaten ton against the Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden last week, gave the Royals a perfect start as they scored in excess of nine an over. The table-toppers lost Buttler soon after the rain interruption, but not before Jaiswal and he put on 74 in eight overs in their opening stand.

Jaiswal, having regained his rhythm, executed his strokes to perfection as he looked even sharper after Buttler’s departure, bringing up his second IPL century. No wonder there relief writ large on his face, especially after a series of missed opportunities.

However, MI pacer Gerald Coetzee’s extra pace did trouble Jaiswal at times, which is why one wonders why captain Hardik Pandya gave the South African just one over earlier during the Royals’ run chase. When Coetzee bowled his second over, the Royals had practically wrapped up the game with only 29 needed off the last five overs.

MI, with the partnership between Tilak Varma (65 off 45 balls) and Nehal Wadhera (49 off 24 balls) being their only positive from the game, were also untidy in the field. Jaiswal, soon after his maiden half-century of this IPL, was dropped at wide-ish long-off, which also earned him six bonus runs. A little later, Royals captain Sanju Samson (38 not out) was also dropped at long-on off the bowling of Pandya, who was mediocre with the ball after failing to connect a rank full toss from Avesh Khan to be out lbw earlier in his 100th appearance for MI.

The Royals though would feel they should not have allowed MI to get closer to 180, especially when they had the visitors reeling at 52/4 in the eighth over.

Sharma had accounted for Ishan Kishan and Suryakumar Yadav after former MI captain Rohit Sharma had fallen once again to Trent Boult in the first over of the game.

But when Varma and Wadhera counterattacked en route to their wonderful 99-run partnership for the fifth wicket off just 52 balls, it appeared MI would comfortably breach the 180-mark and post a formidable total.

However, Boult, brought back into the attack, struck almost immediately with the scalp of Wadhera for his 250th T20 wicket.

Varma though was still going strong at the other end. But after Pandya’s dismissal, Sharma picked up Varma, Coetzee and Tim David for a maiden five-for in his 12th IPL season.

Known to be a regular death bowler, Sharma ensured he fared as well as he had done in the Powerplay.