Gujarat Titans hosted Mumbai Indians in the 35th match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) on Tuesday. The defending champions had to bat first after losing the toss and they posted a mammoth total of 207 runs in their 20 overs. While Shubman Gill, Abhinav Manohar and David Miller were the key architects, they managed to cross the 200-run mark majorly due to Rahul Tewatia's cameo down the order in the last couple of overs. The man smashed three sixes during his unbeaten 5-ball stay in the middle to end on 20 runs.
This isn't the first time Tewatia has played cameos for his side and for the same reason he was picked for a whopping amount by the Gujarat Titans. Perhaps, there was a bidding war to secure his services in the IPL 2022 mega auction between RCB, CSK and GT. In the end, the Titans managed to pick him for INR 9 crore from the base price of INR 40 lakh. Tewatia has delivered big time for his side already and his cameo on Tuesday was another display of his ability. The franchise will hope that he continues to fare the same way for the rest of the season.
Another player who had a terrific outing in the innings was Abhinav Manohar. He smashed 42 off 21 balls to propel the Titans to a big score. He smashed 3 fours and 3 sixes during his stay in the middle. Manohar was happy to contribute to his team's cause.
"I went in when a few wickets fell, we had the timeout. Ashu pa came in and told me to carry the game for three overs, if it's in your zone hit it, if not knock it around for singles, we can make up the runs in the end because we have the firepower to do that. That's what me and Miller spoke about and it paid off. There was an effort to actually to get more runs in the middle overs.
"In our meeting, Hardik made it very clear that if we go after their main bowlers, which was Piyush Chawla, then we can get more runs on the board and then the rest of the bowlers will be under pressure. That's what we tried to do and it worked. I think tonight's gonna go our way, hopefully our bowlers do the job. First six overs is very important because the new ball is going to do something. I'm sure our bowlers will do it," he said.
