It was a show of brute force and audacity from Faf du Plessis, who starred with the bat to take the Texas Super Kings to the top with a swashbuckling century early doors. It was a knock for the ages as Faf took as little as 51 balls to mount 100 runs, which included six fours and seven sixes. The 40-year-old also became the second batter after Glenn Maxwell to score a century this season. His electrifying display with the bat helped TSK finish on a high, giving his bowlers a competitive target to defend. 

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Faf's blistering century deflates the Unicorns' bowlers

Faf Du Plessis, along with the joint support of his ally Devon Conway, set the tone by notching up a robust 97-run stand for the first wicket. Although Conway was slow to race off the blocks and perished shortly, Faf kept pushing on. The TSK skipper was hardly fazed by that dismissal and had no intentions of taking his foot off the accelerator. 

He was later joined by Saiteja Mukkamalla, and the duo took the innings further with Mukkamalla playing the second fiddle. It was TSK skipper who did the bulk of the heavy lifting and single-handedly took on the SFU bowlers. Bowlers had a hard time containing his onslaught, especially Carmi le Roux,  Haris Rauf, and Hassan Khan, who paid a heavy price while facing up to him.

🚨 HUNDRED FOR CAPTAIN FAF DU PLESSIS 🚨

- TSK Captain smashed 100 from just 51 balls including including 6 fours & 7 sixes at the age of 40 in MLC 👑

A LEGEND OF SUPER KINGS FRANCHISE...!!! pic.twitter.com/4wGhGpfHbt

— Johns. (@CricCrazyJohns) June 21, 2025

While most of the TSK batters recorded a strike rate of around 100, Faf was beligerent with his stroke play and finished his innings with an astronomically high strike rate of 196.07. Despite being on the offensive, Faf's innings featured 24 singles, which highlights the importance of strike rotation in the shortest format. While his boundaries came in all directions, a major chunk of his sixes came straight down the ground and over wide long on. 

But as fate would have it, Faf's incredible knock was quickly overshadowed by a blazing opening stand by the SFU openers. In pursuit of their target of 199, SFU openers Allen and Short blasted their way through and launched a scathing attack on the TSK bowlers. The unprecedented onslaught left the TSK bowlers clueless as the duo amassed 117 runs for the first wicket inside nine overs. Although TSK made some minor recovery along the way, Allen and Fraser-McGurk made quickfire contributions of 61 (29) and 37 (25) to steer SFU to an easy seven-wicket win with 23 balls to spare.