The kind of confidence he carries, it’s fantastic – Pandya compliments Rahul Tewatia

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Hardik Pandya is impressed with Rahul Tewatia who won the man of the match award against RCB

Before the clash against Royal Challengers Bangalore, Gujrat Titans had won four games in the run chases in the last over of the game with two of them coming in the final ball of the game.

Chennai Super Kings were the only team in 2012 who won more matches off the last ball of the game in a single edition – three. Now Gujrat Titans had won four games in the run chases in the last over of the game with two off them coming in the final ball of the game.

On Saturday (April 30), GT won eight out of nine games and they didn’t have to wait till the last ball of the game. The sixth-wicket victory against RCB came with three balls to spare with Rahul Tewatia and David Miller doing the job for their side.

The unbeaten partnership of 79 off 40 balls helped GT chase down the target of 171 to cement the top spot on the points table. GT skipper, Hardik Pandya was all in praise for the left-hander as he won the man of the match award for his 43 off 25.

“He’s been tremendous for us. The kind of confidence he carries, it’s fantastic,”

the GT captain pointed out.

“They are stepping up whenever they get a chance and ensure that they are getting the job done. If you follow the process and follow the plan, the result looks after itself.”

It was the seventh successful chase for GT and Pandya backed his batters for being ahead of the target he felt the key factor of the success was maintaining the asking rate.

“When things are going your way, in the past as well when I’ve been battling, we’ve managed to chase down three overs and 50 runs. That does not happen very often so we ensure we keep things in check,”

he pointed out.

“There have been times when the opposition is on top and we’ve managed to pull things back in our favor and ended up winning that game.

“We plan to make sure to keep as little as possible for the end. If you lose wickets in the middle, the asking rate is always going to go up but the players that we have gives me a lot of confidence that even our 8, 9, and 10 can come in and win the game.”

After battling with low scores, Virat Kohli put up a fighting half-century to get his side to a decent total. He built a 99 runs stand with Rajat Patidar and the former RCB skipper took 53 balls to score 58. Pandya said that his bowlers should be appreciated for blocking the hands of Kohli to avoid bigger damage.

“I felt that we felt executed our plans pretty well to him,”

he said.

“There was one point of time where he was in the zone and looking to rotate the strike. Our bowlers did well there and got in a few dot balls. That helped us as the momentum kind of broke there. Our bowlers managed to keep things tight and ensured that Virat couldn’t get into his rhythm.

“At the toss, if I had to take 171, I would have taken it. I don’t want to be greedy but maybe we could have cut down 5-7 runs at a max. Bowlers are not machines but they are pulling up the game if you look there are stages where it looks like the opposition might score 180 or 190 and we have managed to pull things back from there to make sure they are 15-20 runs short.”

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