Five players to look out for in the IPL Final

3) MANOJ TIWARY (RPS)

This spot was a direct toss-up between Steve Smith and Manoj Tiwary. The latter just makes the cut because of the several impactful performances by him in this IPL. This man was ignored in 2016 when none of the teams picked him. However, the Bengal batsman made a strong statement when he turned up for the RPS this season. Used mostly as a floater in the line-up, Manoj impressed one and all at every position. In a few matches, he was sent in as low as No.7 but he finished off the innings in style.

He has got a promotion to No. 4 off late and has been splendid in this role as well as he has stabilized the middle-order. After the departure of Ben Stokes, Manoj has filled in the big shoes with ease as he scored a brilliant 58 in the qualifier which was also the highest score of the match.  He formed an important partnership with Mahendra Singh Dhoni to give a good finish to the RPS innings on an unusually very tough wicket at Wankhede. This performance earned him his 4^th FBB Stylish Player of the Match Award. Only Gautam Gambhir has this many Stylish Player of the Match awards.

Although he is on the 19^th spot on the Orange Cap list, this is mostly because of his batting position. He has scored 317 runs in 12 innings at a brilliant average of 35.22 and a spectacular strike rate of almost 140. Tiwary has been the unlucky man of Indian cricket who missed out on a regular spot in the Indian team due to a huge number of injuries at the wrong time and some favouritism prevelant in the dressing room as he didn’t get to play a game for India for 2 years after scoring a match-winning century. He has put all that behind him and has made a strong mark in this IPL and Tiwary would definitely like to light up the Final once again and win RPS the trophy just like he won KKR the trophy with a boundary off the last ball in 2012. This man is one for the big occasions surely.

About the author

Aakash Verma