Prabhsimran, 22, became the fifth centurion of IPL 2023– after Venkatesh Iyer, Harry Brook, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Suryakumar Yadav – against Delhi Capitals on May 13. He finished with a 65-ball 103, playing a solo role in taking PBKS to 167-7 in 20 overs. The Punjab side eventually won by 31 runs.

This season has been by far his most productive in IPL – having debuted in 2019, he played a combined six games in his first four seasons, before getting an extended run this time. The results have been there to see.

In 12 matches, he’s scored 334 runs at 27.83 and a strike rate of 153.92, giving Punjab blazing starts at the top.

In 2020, when he was still a rookie, Sachin Tendulkar posted a tweet praising his batting style. At that time, few would have known Prabhsimran, not yet a first-class cricketer, who had made his T20 debut the previous year.

“I haven’t seen much of Prabhsimran’s batting,” Tendulkar said in 2020. “Saw a bit yesterday and I liked it. The way his bat-lift is, and the bat swing too, it’s very free flowing. A special thing about him is the sound off his bat – it was fantastic. I think he could prove to be a dangerous batsman this season”.

It’s interesting to note that Prabhsimran played just two games that season – scoring 15 runs in all. But something from the two boundaries he hit in an 8-ball 11 against SRH, was seemingly enough for Tendulkar to deliver his verdict.

It took some time, but Prabhsimran has finally broken through – the century now puts him second on the run-getters list from PBKS this season.

Sachin would be proud.

I really liked what I saw of @prabhsimran01 in @lionsdenkxip’s previous game.

Here are my observations about him from that game.#KXIPvKKR #IPL2020 pic.twitter.com/7elqOWXjWz

— Sachin Tendulkar (@sachin_rt) October 10, 2020