Manish who? Manish Pandey. And that's centurion Manish Pandey to the likes of you and me. The 2009 DLF IPL hasn't been short on surprises, but Pandey's 114 not out in Centurion on Thursday took the cake.
AB de Villiers scored the first century in this year's tournament for the Delhi Daredevils against the Chennai Super Kings in Durban on April 23. Or, if you like, all the way back in match nine. We've had to wait almost a month and 47 more matches for another batsman to reach three figures.
Enter young Mr Pandey, who owns the top score in this year's IPL after his innings for Royal Challengers Bangalore against Deccan Chargers. Not only that, he is the first Indian to score a century in the admittedly short history of the IPL.
But who is he? Nantilal, the place where Pandey was born not quite 20 years ago, has to be one of the few words in any language that returns zero results when it is Googled. Not so Karnataka, the southern Indian state that Pandey made his first-class debut for last November. He was part of the Indian squad that won the 2008 under-19 World Cup, but he wasn't given many opportunities to shine because of the heavyweight batting line-up the Indians took into the tournament.
He played three matches for the Mumbai Indians in the inaugural IPL. He batted twice, and scored all three of his runs in one of those innings. This year, he added two runs to that tally in the couple of games he played before Thursday.
Then came the breakthrough - 114 not out off 73 balls with 10 fours and four sixes. And a huge favour from RP Singh. Pandey was two not out in the third over when he slashed at a delivery from Ryan Harris. The ball looped towards third man, where RP made a hash of what should have been a standard catch. Perhaps he was blinded by the brightness of his Purple Cap.
That wasn't Pandey's only close call on the night. His penchant for swinging lustily across the line didn't always serve him well, and his misses and miscues mounted. But so did his runs. The half-century arrived in the 11th over by way of a mighty heave over midwicket for six during Tirumalsetti Suman's only over. He repeated the shot, and the result, off the next ball.
Pandey reached his century in the 18th over, taking two to long-on off Andrew Symonds. His celebration was muted, perhaps because he knew his innings wasn't without its blemishes. Pandey faced a half dozen balls after that, smashing RP down the ground for six in the last over of the innings to leave the bowler with a painful reminder of his early error.
As an innings, it was no oil painting. Rather, it was a mad splash of colour slapped haphazardly across a canvas that kept changing shape. Which didn't detract at all from its entertainment value.
We also shouldn't lose sight of the fact that Pandey, at an age when most of us are wracked with worry about acne and examinations, walked out in front of thousands with little in his cricketing past to herald him and overcame an uncertain start to eventually raise his bat as a hero.
Back in Nantilal, someone might want to call Google.
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