Populate Mud DataGrid on Search click

I seen examples of datagrid to populate on component load. I have thousands of records in a table so user has to perform a search first and populate the mudgrid when the search button is clicked.

<MudDataGrid T="Item" ServerData="@(ServerReload)" @ref="_table"> 

On Server reload, I am populate the grid when based on the search criteria. On search click tried to call

_table.ReloadServerData();

The problem here is on the initial page load the grid shows up. When I hide the mudgrid until the search is performed then _table object isn't available on search click.Is there a way to show data grid when search performed?