From an ecstatic Jhulan Goswami in the Mumbai Indians dugout to an applauding Gautami Naik in the backdrop of the frame, everyone at the Kotambi Stadium in Vadodara rose to their feet as Nat Sciver-Brunt etched her name in history books by notching up the first-ever century in the Women's Premier League on Monday.

The Mumbai Indians vice-captain achieved the feat - a 57-ball 100 not out - in the final over of their must-win game against Royal Challengers Bengaluru, setting up the team's comfortable 15-run victory to keep them in the playoffs hunt. The league's leading run-getter, with 1346 runs, Sciver-Brunt finally snapped the run of near-misses - two of which came in this season alone with Smriti Mandhana (96) and Sophie Devine (95) coming within striking distance of the elusive figure.

Sciver-Brunt said she was keen not to join that list. "Yeah, obviously I'd seen a few players get out in the 90s, so I didn't want to replicate that," the centurion told the broadcaster mid-innings. "But I also wanted to get as many runs as possible for the team. I'm really pleased we could get up to that total, and personally really happy as well."

Arriving at the crease in the third over with MI reeling at 16/1 after yet another opening-partnership failure, Sciver-Brunt helped turn around Mumbai's fortunes. She stitched a massive 131-run partnership with Hayley Matthews in just 73 balls and then added a quick 42 off 25 deliveries with skipper Harmanpreet Kaur. Even though MI slowed down a tad with the loss of the other two set batters, the 199/4 she powered MI to eventually proved enough.

Sciver-Brunt dedicated the milestone to her wife, former England pacer Katherine Sciver-Brunt, and their infant son Theodore with a 'T' celebration. "Just a little nod to home," she said. "Katherine is obviously watching. Well, hopefully. She's actually a really nervous watcher, so she's probably not watching, but she wanted a 'T' and she wanted me to get three figures. So, here we go. It's my first T20 hundred, so I'm really happy to get over that milestone, and hopefully it's not the last."

Teammate and her partner in that match-defining second-wicket stand, Matthews, lavished praise on the Englishwoman. "It was definitely nice to watch from the other end when she was going four after four after four. I really do love batting with her. We flow off of each other really well. For her to get the hundred today was quite deserving," the MI opener said.

Matthews also commended Sciver-Brunt for her consistency year-on-year, which has seen the MI vice-captain become the league's all-time highest run-getter alongside the record for the most number of individual fifties. "With all the innings that she's played, not only this year, but over the last four seasons for MI, she's probably been the best batter in this competition. So in my opinion, quite fitting that she was able to get the first one."

The quick acceleration from 16-ball 17 to a 32-ball half-century and then the hundred in another 25 deliveries had even the opposition skipper admiring in awe. "Nat is definitely a world-class player," Mandhana said after the loss. "She can hit one ball at three different places, which again makes life very difficult. Credit to her. The shots she played were amazing. There were not many answers which we could find out there in the middle. She almost scored the bulk of the runs. Plus, the way she accelerated after 25-30 is something which every youngster should watch and learn."

RCB head coach Malolan Rangarajan also tipped his hat to the MI vice-captain. "Nat played one of those innings where she was putting away even the good balls. Balls which were on length, on stump, she was able to manipulate it. It was almost like she flicked a switch after the first timeout... To score the first 100 in the WPL, sure, I would have liked Smriti [Mandhana] to have got it. But if anybody else deserved to be the first centurion in the WPL, I think Nat certainly was it."

With 319 runs in six innings, at an average of 79.75 and strike-rate just short of 155, Sciver-Brunt now holds the Orange Cap - 59 runs clear of the second-best on the list, Harmanpreet Kaur. She was the Orange Cap winner last edition of WPL, with 523 runs, and also the season's MVP.