A fair share of the credit for the fact that Gujarat Titans have won 11 matches out of 12 while chasing since the previous edition of the Indian Premier League goes to their middle-order, Southpaw batter Rahul Tewatia.
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Representing the state of Haryana in the domestic circuit, and featuring in the IPL since the 2014 season, the 29-year-old became the talking point of the cricketing fraternity during IPL 2020, when he smashed five consecutive Sixes while playing for the Rajasthan Royals to nail a near improbable chase against the Punjab Kings.
A leg-spinner as well, Tewatia now has developed this knack of finishing matches since the previous season, where his three scores in the 40s had taken GT over the line each time, and helped them lift the IPL title in only their debut season.
In one particular match against PBKS last year, he smashed two consecutive Sixes off Odean Smith with 12 runs required off the final two deliveries, to hand GT an unlikely win out of nowhere.
Rahul Tewatia Hometown
Having played for Haryana in the under-15, under-19, and the under-22 level, Rahul Tewatia was born in the Sihi village, sector 8 in the district of Faridabad (Haryana), a few kilometers away from the national capital of New Delhi.
Primarily a leg-spinner who could also bat, it was challenging for Tewatia who has only played mere 7 First-Class matches for Haryana, to break into his state domestic team which already had some quality spinners in Yuzvendra Chahal, Jayant Yadav, and Amit Mishra.
Thus, the mysterious ways in which fortune operates, it was the bat which was supposed to do the talking for the Southpaw batter, and yet again it is the IPL which has made Tewatia a household name now just like it has done for scores of other cricketers in India.
The day in his village after the Tewatia special knock in IPL 2020
Rahul Tewatia’s father – criminal advocate Krishan Pal Tewatia, had never attended so many calls one after the other in his life, the day after his son had played the aforementioned match-winning innings (53 off 31) against Punjab.
“They told me Rahul was not just my son but that he was the ‘son of the village’. I met so many people and received so many calls on Sunday that I got a headache, remarked Krishan from the Sihi village in Faridabad after Tewatia’s knock, during an interaction with The Weekend Letter.
From his well-wishers, Tewatia’s father claimed to have received not less than a thousand calls and met over 400 people for several days, only to congratulate him for his son’s success.
