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The Pain and Redemption- Rahul Tewatia special

Everybody hopes for a miracle. Every team loves to see that. Every team loves to break the shackles, make the other team wonder.

Narines and Archers are game-changers with the bat too, but in a pressure chase, it is always going to be difficult even if you are a master of chases. We have seen many dramas like that which had curtains pulled down even before the intervals.

It is not really over until it is. We are all humans. We are forced to believe in all these positive theories with a pinch of miracles added to it, but again, we are all too quick to dismiss these theories. Nobody believed when Tewatia walked out. It shocked plenty. Many hardly knew him.

There is this dialogue of Mindy Kaling from The Office series. That goes like… “I have a lot of questions, number one… How dare you?”. This is so relatable if you are in the position of Samson who is already shouldering the responsibility. He probably would have wanted to ask it to everyone in the dugout. Especially, to Tewatia who was eating deliveries for dinner.

For the records, he is not as bad as he batted initially. He has the fifties and recently scored hundred for his club too. Oh, he plays millions of matches. You name the tournament, he will be there.

He is also a leftie sent up the order to take on the spinners. The team was just living up to the current trend. These are all youngsters. They love these trends.

When Tewatia took the field, the team needed 124 runs from 66 deliveries. Tricky but gettable.

When you are playing your 50th T20 game, you are allowed to be nervous. You are allowed to make something out of it. Tewatia bowled only one over and went for 19. Of course, it is not a good day to be a bowler. Oh yes, here in IPL. It is not a good day for bowlers in IPL. We are not talking about the final of RHF Trophy that happened on the other side of the world a few minutes before this match. Because, you know, you are not Taylor to grab six-fer.

Coming back to this match, Tewatia began with a neat defence something that can take him to the Test team. Then a drive. A single and then a dot again. The run-rate got into his minds and was doing weird things to him.

He tried a reverse sweep that wasn’t there, tried to make use of the pace which wasn’t offered. A sweep straight to the hands of deep midwicket, A powerless straight drive. A misjudgement for a dot ball. Googly that trolled him; Slog sweeps that edged and went the other way. The frustration was real. This was making Samson angry too. Every single ball, he was telling him at least to get off the strike. Tewatia made it all worse. He almost played his last match.

Oh yes, you are in IPL. You will fade away if you fail. Of course, Tewatia knows this better. Right from 2014, he travelled multiple places, called different franchises his home. Before coming back to where he belongs, to the franchise where he began his journey, the Royals.

After missing out multiple deliveries, he was travelling over the knife edge. He was about to become the villain of the team. Samson made it worse when he avoided the single. Of course, for the team, Samson had to.

Tewatia froze. He was feeling awful, but he needed to get over it. Maybe, the fear of failure took over. Maybe, he would have remembered how his life would be if he fails here.

The fear of failure makes you do crazier things. Tewatia was fighting with himself. He wanted to prove. He wanted to tell everyone that he belongs here. He did. Fasten your seat belts, Oh, yes, bring on that Believer song.

When Samson got out, he knew what he had to do. Take the strike. After Uthappa scored two boundaries, he got his opportunity that he was waiting for.

Tewatia moves. He tries to confuse Cottrell. The latter follows him with a bouncer. He managed to pull it over the long leg. It was a small six, still, the team will take it.

Another short of a length delivery. Tewatia was already in his position. He swings the bat. He swings so hard and there was some pace that the ball goes over the short square boundary. It wasn’t from the middle of the bat but enough to save the day.

Cottrell pitches it up and this time, Tewatia goes wide to his off-side. That was three in a row. The other Rahul runs to Cottrell, Neesham and few others follow. They have a conference in the middle.

Tewatia, on the other hand, was warming up. It is still a cat-mouse race. Tewatia moves early once again. Cottrell misses the yorker and the delivery becomes a low full-toss. Tewatia hangs in there, smashes it over midwicket for a flat-six.

The pain was in the eye of Cottrell now. Rahul would have told him, “Dei leg side la podaadha da off-side la maintain pannu”. Cottrell does it. He brings in the slower delivery and Tewatia misses. The plan worked… Or not.

Cottrell maintains the off-side line, goes wide. Tewatia moves and smashes it over mid-wicket. Cottrell sees Rahul and I’m pretty sure he would have said the dialogue that follows.

The story of pain and redemption wins once again. The adrenaline rush was just too much and with the same rush, Archer smacks Shami for a couple of six right after Uthappa’s dismissal. Two deliveries later, Tewatia reaches fifty in his own way, plays a beautiful upper-cut and has a minimal celebration.

After doing the job and almost finishing it for the team, Tewatia gets out. Still, he kicks himself for not finishing the match. Even after scoring a fifty, he has his face down; frown for not completing the job. Now, that’s the kind of player Tewatia is. He wants to do it all. He wants to be there for his team until the end. Taking risks is his way of doing the job. Somedays he wins, somedays he doesn’t, but he keeps getting better and will take the knife for the team any day.

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