Gujarat Titans hosted Mumbai Indians in the 35th match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) on Tuesday. Electing to bat first after losing the toss, the defending champions posted a mammoth score of 207 runs in the stipulated 20 overs. While Shubman Gill, Abhinav Manohar and David Miller were the key architects, they managed to cross the 200-run mark in the last few overs thanks to a cameo sequence from Rahul Tewatia. The man hit three sixes during his unbeaten 5-ball spell in the middle to end on 20.
This is not the first time that Tewatia has played a cameo for his side and it is for this reason that he was picked up by Gujarat Titans for a huge amount. Perhaps, there was a bidding war between RCB, CSK and GT to secure their services in the IPL 2022 mega auction. In the end, Titans managed to get him for Rs 9 crore from his base price of Rs 40 lakh. Tewatia has already given big time for his team and his cameo on Tuesday was another display of his potential. The franchise will hope that he continues to perform in the same way for the rest of the season.
Another player who performed brilliantly in the innings was Abhinav Manohar. He scored 42 runs in 21 balls to take the Titans to a big score. He hit 3 fours and 3 sixes during his stay in the middle. Manohar was happy to contribute for his team.
“I went in when a few wickets fell, we had a timeout. Ashu Pa came in and told me to take the game to three overs, if it’s in your zone then hit it, if not throw it around for singles, So we can make up.” Runs in the end because we have the firepower to do so. That’s what me and Miller talked about and it paid off. There was really an effort to score more runs in the middle overs.
“In our meeting, Hardik made it clear that if we go after his main bowlers, who was Piyush Chawla, we can put more runs on the board and then the rest of the bowlers will be under pressure. That’s what we tried Do it and it worked. I think tonight is going to go our way, hope our bowlers do the job. First six overs are very important as the new ball is going to do something. I am sure our bowlers will do that Will do,” he said.