Against all odds - Rahul Tewatia's fight in a record chase

"But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward."
- Rocky Balboa

'Yatra Pratibha Avsara Prapnotihi' are the Sanskrit words carved on the golden IPL trophy. It translates to 'where talent meets opportunity'. Over the years, the tournament has witnessed many comeback and redemption tales. On Sept. 27, 2020, one such tale was etched into IPL history: The story of one Rahul Tewatia.

Batting first, the Kings XI Punjab had posed a mammoth 223, courtesy of Mayank Agarwal and KL Rahul's almost record-breaking opening partnership.

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In the pursuit of a seemingly impossible target, Rahul Tewatia was struggling. It was in spite of a whirlwind 50 off 27 balls from Rajasthan Royals skipper Steve Smith and an onslaught from Sanju Samson. Tewatia was promoted in the batting order to keep a left-right combination going in the middle and to unsettle Ravi Bishnoi. Instead of maintaining the tempo of the chase, he was missing everything. When the need was to swing for the stands, he was eating up balls. At the other end, Samson continued from where he left off in the last match, hitting with effortless ease. Samson on his own would not be able to finish the job.

The dot balls started piling up against Tewatia. The ESPNCricinfo commentary quipped, “He is feeling awful. He is a deer in the headlights and he has frozen.”

Over 15.3, a dot ball. Samson just refused to give the strike to Tewatia. A few moments ago, the latter's score read 8 runs off 20 deliveries. After hitting Bishnoi for a six, Tewatia's score managed to reach 14 off 21 balls. Then he started to mistime his strokes again. And when Samson refused to take that single, the hint was clear: Tewatia was proving to be a burden.

Then began the comparisons with Ravindra Jadeja's flop show against England in the Super Eight stage of the 2009 T20 World Cup and Yuvraj Singh's failure Singh in the 2014 T20 World Cup final. The deer had lost its way.

Samson fell after scoring a fighting 85 off 42 balls. The required run rate had shot up to 17 and 51 were needed from the last three overs. Punjab had the match pretty much in their pocket.

Rahul Tewatia then chose that moment to script his tale of redemption. This is what the 18th over scorecard showed after Tewatia had dealt with Sheldon Cottrell - 6,6,6,6,0,6. The equation came down dramatically to 21 runs off 12 balls and Tewatia's score rocketed to 47 off 29. He added another six in the next over off Mohammad Shami to bring up his fifty.

When he was dismissed attempting another six, Rahul Tewatia had reached 53 runs off 31 balls and Rajasthan had risen from the ashes.

From someone blamed for his team's near-defeat to the one who carried them home, Tewatia had turned the tide and changed the final result in the space of six balls. When his innings ended, Tewatia had hit the same number of maximums as Samson - seven. With Archer joining the sixer party, Rajasthan managed to hit a total of eight sixes in 11 balls. And they needed just two runs from the last over.

The highest chase in IPL history now belongs to Rajasthan.

"He never lost belief in himself," said Sunil Gavaskar about Tewatia in the post-match analysis. Tewatia, like many out there, fumbled and struggled but inched his way out of the problem. He just kept fighting, patiently waiting to push open the door to his destiny. In Tewatia's own words, "I knew I had to believe in myself."

In the end, it was the summit where opportunity and talent converged and it was a glorious night for cricket.