Mitch Marsh has been thumping attacks around in the Indian Premier League for 15 years with mixed success — but he's never enjoyed a season quite like 2025, which he's now capped with his first IPL ton.
Australia's T20I captain Marsh has worked wonders at the top of the order this campaign, trying to pummel the Justin Langer-coached Lucknow Super Giants towards the playoffs, only to be frustrated to miss out on making the knockouts.
But despite their elimination, the 33-year-old powerhouse was still determined to keep thrashing on Thursday in Lucknow's penultimate match of the season, hitting his first IPL ton in his 48th knock to propel the Super Giants to a consolation 33-run win against the ladder-leading Gujarat Titans at Ahmedabad.
It was the first century by an overseas player all season and took him to a total of 560 runs in just 12 innings, a tally only surpassed by the Indian trio of Sai Sudharsan (638), Shubman Gill (636) and Suryakumar Yadav (583).
In doing so, Mitch joined brother Shaun in being the only pair of brothers to hit an IPL ton.
The eight booming sixes in his 64-ball 117 took his total this tournament to 32.
Only teammate Nicholas Pooran, who has 40, has scored more this year after adding another five in his 56 not out.
Marsh has been Langer's mainstay this season and some of his power hitting has been staggering, like the 25 he took off the leg-spinning wizard Rashid Khan in his first over — 6, 4, 6, 4, 4, 1.
He added 121 off just 52 balls with Pooran and reached his hundred off 56 balls — only his second in all T20 cricket after the 100 not out he made for Perth Scorchers in a Big Bash match in 2021.
It was a particularly striking effort after he had struggled to get off to a flyer, making just 19 off his first 15 balls.
"In T20s these days, if you're 12 off 12 balls and not timing it well, it's panic stations. But today showed you can bat through and go on to stitch big partnerships."
Indeed, his tour de force enabled Lucknow to make a monster 2-235 with tall New Zealand quick Will O'Rourke then taking 3-27 to help restrict Gujarat to 9-202 despite Shahrukh Khan 57 off 29 balls.
For Marsh, the century felt like the reward for a "long journey" that had begun when he was playing for Deccan Chargers back in 2010, but the frustration of missing out on the playoffs still hurt.
"It's been disappointing, all teams come in to win it but the IPL is a beast of a competition, you've got to be on it every game," he said.
"Any team can beat any team and that makes it the best tournament in the world."
AAP/ABC
