Calm, clarity, century - the making of Sciver-Brunt's WPL landmark

The IPL announced itself to the world on its very first night in 2008 courtesy Brendon McCullum's 158. The WPL has followed a slightly different arc. Make no mistake: in just three years, it has reshaped the women's game in India in ways decades haven't; the long-awaited World Cup triumph in 2025 one of its most powerful byproducts. Yet, one landmark that cricket and fans sometimes obsess over remained elusive.

Smriti Mandhana. Sophie Devine. Georgia Voll. Alyssa Healy. Beth Mooney. Phoebe Litchfield. All worthy of the landmark, and all incredible batters with unique styles had fallen agonisingly short. Until Monday night, when another unique batter with an actual shot named after her, broke the barrier.

It was none other Mumbai Indians' Nat Sciver-Brunt, who inflicted carnage on a Vadodara surface that tested her shot-making, manoeuvrability and risk-taking. The end result: an unbeaten 100 off 57 balls that outmuscled Richa Ghosh's incredible 50-ball 90 as Mumbai fought to stay alive in the playoff race.

Sciver-Brunt needed to overcome a slow powerplay. Having seen off her England team-mate Lauren Bell, who has been a perennial new-ball threat, she immediately put pressure on RCB's next-in-line, hitting Nadine de Klerk and Shreyanka Patil for 49 off their first four overs.

Sciver-Brunt faced up to de Klerk's pace like she would an offspinner, tactfully playing the field and using the shorter leg-side boundary by muscling two sixes towards cow corner. And the same short square boundary had her improvise against Shreyanka's loopy offspin from the other end, repeatedly backing away to slap the ball with disdain.

Shreyanka's efforts to overcorrect to a middle-stump line proved futile too, as Sciver-Brunt unfurled sweeps of varying ferocity for back-to-back fours to raise a 32-ball half-century. All of this, incredibly, after playing out nearly 15 deliveries that bore no inkling of the damage to follow. From a measured 38 for 1 in six overs, Mumbai were ready to launch at the back end, having gotten to 143 for 1 with six overs remaining.

"You have to give credit to Nat Sciver-Brunt," RCB coach Malolan Rangarajan said after the match. "I have been involved for a while now in the IPL and WPL, and I think across both, this is one of the premier innings I have seen.

"Sure, there were areas where we could have executed better and didn't. But Nat played one of those innings where she was putting away even the good balls... balls on length, on the stumps, and she was able to manipulate them. It was almost like she flicked a switch after the first time-out because we were pretty happy with the way we had executed until then.

"Even then, the runs they scored were partly about us maybe not executing as well as we could have. But after that, to score the first hundred in the WPL… Sure, I would have liked Smriti to have got it, but if anybody else deserved to be the first centurion in the WPL, I think Nat certainly deserves it.

At the 14-over mark, Sciver-Brunt had already contributed 75. A century from there on seemed mere formality. That's when RCB's bowlers hit back by sticking to tighter lines and bowling to the longer boundary. They'd learnt, except the damage had been done.

With their pace variations slowly beginning to take shape, Sciver-Brunt threw another curveball at them by employing the reverse ramp to great effect. By then, she was batting on instinct - the fields, the lengths and line didn't seem to matter. It was cricket and batting in its purest form, stripped of everything else. Of seeing the ball, and hitting the ball.

The last over of the Mumbai innings brought about a sense of anticipation. As Sciver-Brunt got to 99, team-mates inside the change room stormed to the balcony. Those in the dugout stood up in anticipation to witness a slice of history. And the moment duly arrived when she chipped an inside-out hit off Patil to long-off. Just like that, a 1059-days, 82-match itch had been scratched.

Out came the 'T' celebration, a tribute to her son Theodore, and a quiet wave of acknowledgement to the dressing room and her partner, Katherine Sciver-Brunt watching on TV from back home in the UK.

For three weeks, the WPL's first century had felt like a matter of when, not if. On Monday night in Vadodara, Sciver-Brunt embraced the occasion and let it come to her in what seemed the most logical conclusion to an innings where clarity and control trumped all else.