Ryan Rickelton has played his part for Mumbai Indians (MI) in what has been a poor IPL 2026 for them so far. There have been three poor outings, all single-digit scores, but there have also been a 43-ball 81, a 22-ball 37, and on Wednesday night against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), a 55-ball 123 not out. All while there has been little certainty about his place in the MI XI, what with Quinton de Kock also around and, more recently, Will Jacks coming into the mix.

“I think it’s not easy, especially for an overseas batter, to come in, do well, again get dropped,” Saba Karim said on ESPNcricinfo’s TimeOut show after the game, which MI lost despite putting up 243. “I can understand that, but for Ryan Rickelton to come back and score so briskly – he also realised, I’m sure there’s been a team talk, that we need to get a solid base in the powerplay. And I think both Will Jacks [the other opener] and Ryan Rickelton were able to provide that.”

It was Jacks’ first game of the season after he linked up with the team late. With Rohit Sharma out with a hamstring issue and de Kock picking up a wrist injury, MI have had to keep rejigging their opening combination. On Wednesday, they seemed to have arrived at a solid option, with Jacks scoring 46 in 22 balls and adding 93 in 43 balls with Rickelton. The powerplay ended at 78 for no loss. Superb on most days. Overshadowed by SRH’s 92 for no loss on the night.

As for Rickelton, his name has been added to a growing list of century-makers in IPL 2026 who have ended up on the losing side. Of the nine centuries scored in the tournament so far, five have been in vain, so to say. That list has de Kock, as well as KL Rahul, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and B Sai Sudarshan.

“Ryan Rickelton is quite like Priyansh Arya – both of them are very steady, they don’t step out to pace bowlers in the powerplay; they wait for the ball to come their way,” Karim said. “And both of them have got a similar kind of a batswing when they try and hit on the on side. So again, all that was pitched in the slot, angling towards him, he was able to easily manoeuvre those shots towards the on side.

“But I think he’s equally good against spinners. And I think that over of Harsh Dubey [the seventh, which went for 15 runs], Pat Cummins thought that maybe spinner can do the work. But Ryan Rickelton, and Will Jacks as well, to nullify that over, just goes to show that I think they had their plans laid out and they were able to execute.”

One of the good things about Rickelton’s innings was that he didn’t slow down at any stage. The 50 came up in 23 balls. The 100 came up in 44 balls. And 23 more came in the last 11 balls he faced. The other good thing was that he batted through the innings with only Hardik Pandya’s 15-ball 31 a contribution of substance after Jacks and Rickelton were separated.

“Ryan Rickelton especially for him to continue, especially in the middle overs when they had lost SKY [Suryakumar Yadav, in the ninth over] very quickly and then Naman Dhir [22 in 17 balls] also didn’t get off to a good start,” Karim said. “I think Ryan Rickelton’s presence was so important for MI.”

Rickelton is MI’s highest run-getter at this stage of the tournament, with 260 at a strike rate of 181.81. Take out Jacks, who has had just the one innings, and Sherfane Rutherford, who has 103 runs from six innings, and no one in the line-up has a better strike rate. And the next-highest run-getter is 72 runs behind: Tilak Varma with 188. He has been in and out of the MI XI, but Rickelton will have reason to think he has booked himself a spot for MI’s remaining games this season.