In a 38.4-over game, where there were two half-centuries, it feels a bit weird to talk about knocks that added up to 71 runs.

For Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Sarfaraz Khan hit 32 off 12 balls and wowed around 33,000 fans at Chepauk with his inventiveness. Priyansh Arya then changed the game with 39 off 11 balls for Punjab Kings (PBKS) and stunned Chepauk into silence. He was even rewarded with the Player-of-the-Match award.

An opening batter winning the Player-of-the-Match award is pretty normal. But never before in the history of men's T20s has one picked up the award after playing just 11 balls (in an unreduced game).

It had looked like Friday was Sarfaraz's day until Arya's intervention. Sarfaraz walked out to the crease when CSK were losing momentum on a flat pitch after Ayush Mhatre had led a charmed life during his 43-ball 73. From 130 for 4 in the 14th over, Sarfaraz helped drag them up to 209.

Sarfaraz announced his arrival at Chepauk with an audacious, ramped four over the keeper off Arshdeep Singh. Except this wasn't audacious for Sarfaraz. He had introduced the IPL to these shots when he was just 19 in an RCB team that had superstars such as Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers and Shane Watson. It's his signature shot even in Test cricket.

Having been bred on bouncy, red-soil pitches in Mumbai, Sarfaraz has been instinctively tuned to ramping anything that is remotely short and outside off in the 'V' behind the wickets.

Arshdeep responded to the ramp by hitting an awkward, in-between length that was neither short nor full and cramped Sarfaraz with sharp inward movement and sharper extra bounce. Arshdeep's zip had Sarfaraz's upper body recoil before he somehow adjusted in that split-second. He opened the face of his bat and sent the ball skipping away between the keeper and short third like a skimming stone.

Sarfaraz was pulling off these trick shots on a pitch where his captain Ruturaj Gaikwad managed only 28 off 22 balls and Shivam Dube was on 14 off 14 balls at one point. It was especially apparent in Gaikwad's case that he wasn't going hard at the ball.

Then there was Arya who was thinking 6, 4, 3, 2, 1. He faced 11 balls, one fewer than Sarfaraz, and dispatched seven of those to the boundary or over it. CSK coach Stephen Fleming said that Sarfaraz's knock gave them belief at the innings break, but Arya shattered it in 11 balls.

Arya has always had the gift of timing. He had admirers even before he graduated to the IPL. R Ashwin bigged him up after he crashed 81 off 47 balls in a Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy game in 2023-24 against a Tamil Nadu attack that included Washington Sundar, Varun Chakravarthy and T Natarajan. PBKS coach Ricky Ponting called him a "very special" opener even before he made his IPL debut.

Arya showed why, hitting 475 runs in his debut IPL season at a strike rate of almost 180 in PBKS' run to the final. Now, in his second IPL season, he has reminded the world why he was special by marrying timing with immense clarity. His role was to see the ball and hit the ball. He stayed true to it. Even after hitting seven boundaries off his first ten balls, he got out while going for his eighth. He knew that his team had batting depth all the way down to No. 9. He knew that he didn't have to be out in the middle for a long time. He knew that batting for a good time would set it up for the middle order.

A number of players in the past, including Hardik Pandya and more recently Jake Fraser-McGurk, have suffered the second-season syndrome in the IPL, but it hasn't got to Arya, according to his PBKS team-mate Shashank Singh.

"[With] Priyansh I think technique was never an issue," Shashank said. "But we know with IPL the second season is the most important season because the teams they do find the weaknesses in you. But with Priyansh what we, as a team, really liked last year is that he's mentally very tough. I mean he doesn't speak much but he's very mentally tough. He knows his role and he knows his areas where he can score runs.

"Just the other night how Cooper Connolly - like, he's only 22 - and the way he was mature in his innings, it's the same with Priyansh. I mean he's very young, he's 23-24 [24], but the way he's matured regarding his batting... I think it is fantabulous. He hits the ball well, he tries to middle it, he doesn't try to over-hit the ball. So all those things which are required especially for an opener - I think he has it."

It's scary to think how good Arya could become.