Despite losing his mother to cancer on Tuesday, Tushar Deshpande put on a brave face, turned up for the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy match against Delhi in Indore on Friday and delivered his career-best performance in T20 cricket.

Put in to bat first in the Super League Group B meet, Delhi held steady at 63/1 in the tenth over before Deshpande struck to send back Unmukt Chand and captain Nitish Rana back in successive balls. Delhi were soon reeling at 66/4 when Akash Parkar removed Dhruv Shorey shortly after.

Deshpande then came back towards the end removed joint-top scorer -- with Shorey -- Lalit Yadav and Suboth Bhati to end up with enviable figures of 4/19 in his quota of four overs, his second four-fer in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy this season. Delhi ended with a score of 144/7, with the ARCS Andheri bowler from the inaugural season of T20 Mumbai ably supported by Shams Mulani's economical spell of 1/18 in his four overs.

Despite the difficult period, Deshpande -- who has now picked 15 wickets in eight games in the tournament -- had delivered.

"I was very attached to her like every son would be," he told the media. "Thoughts about mummy will definitely come, but my mom wanted me to play well and nothing else. If I stop right now, then there's no point."

His efforts paid off as Mumbai chased the target with eight wickets and an over to spare. Skipper Shreyas Iyer led the chase with 53 not out, pillared by an unbeaten quickfire 26-ball 42 from Suryakumar Yadav and Jay Bista's 39.