Tewatia vs Bishnoi: the Mumbai remix

Rahul Tewatia has shown his utility as a T20 player, but his fate seems to be forever used as a common noun thanks to that Sharjah game two IPLs ago. "Can he do a Tewatia?" is often asked when a batter gets off to a desperately slow start in a difficult chase.

That indeed was a once-in-a-lifetime turnaround after Tewatia had been 8 off 19, apparently sucking the life out of an exciting chase. He ended up with 53 off 31 that night, providing a counter argument against "retiring out" in T20s. Having said that, not even Tewatia will believe that can be repeated.

At Wankhede, in his first match for a new franchise, albeit in a smaller chase, Tewatia found himself in a bit of a similar situation. The opposition captain was the same, KL Rahul. Tewatia was 6 off 10. The requirement was now 68 off the last five. Most importantly, Tewatia's nemesis was the same: Ravi Bishnoi, who was the main reason Tewatia struggled on that night in Sharjah.

Bishnoi hardly ever spins the ball back in to the left-hand batter. Tewatia was wise to that fact in Sharjah too, which was apparent from how he kept looking to hit long-off and wide long-off, but he couldn't adjust to the angle and the pace. After missing out on drives down the ground, Tewatia tried the slogs and the sweeps. It didn't work. Then he tried that reverse-sweep, and his execution was not great. Eventually he managed to hit one six by running down at Bishnoi, but it was clear he couldn't let Bishnoi dominate him again.

Before getting to Bishnoi, though, Tewatia took a toll on Deepak Hooda's non-turning offbreaks by targeting the shorter leg-side boundary. Now it was Tewatia against Bishnoi, already beaten outside off by the one that keeps going away, one off three the head-to-head. But there were a couple of things in Tewatia's favour in Mumbai. One, Bishnoi had a wet ball to contend with, and two, he was bowling only his fourth over at the death in his IPL career.

This was the first match that Tewatia was facing Bishnoi since that Sharjah game. He knew he couldn't afford a repeat. Fairy-tales don't happen again and again. This time he pulled out the reverse-sweep the first ball of the 17th over. It is a shot he sparingly plays. He played it seven times in the 2020 IPL, and four times in 2021. And yet he absolutely nailed it, which suggests he must have worked harder on that shot just for this kind of bowling.

"Bishnoi bowled what he has been bowling to me, but after that reverse-sweep he was forced to think," Tewatia told Star Sports after the match. "He tried to use the bigger leg-side boundary, but I kept playing my shots."

That one six and the lure of the big boundary made Bishnoi veer from what had troubled Tewatia in the past. He even bowled one wide down the leg side. This innings was no common noun. This was not a Tewatia. This was just a smart lower-order batter using whatever he has at his disposal to see through a chase. He will want more such innings to be associated with his name before he is done.