The hundreds won’t do, the 50s won’t do and the cameo, especially towards the back end of the innings in the death overs who won’t do either. Nothing beats the commanding charge, the beauty and the incredible importance of a captain playing a captain innings as only he can, and that too, in a very decisive stage of a tournament as brilliant as the IPL. If you are a certain Rajat Patidar, then you definitely know the importance of these lines, especially because it’s May 26, and you are facing an uphill task in the first qualifier contest against Gujarat Titans, where a lot is on the line truth be told if you happen to win this game, you directly enter the finals, the magnum opus of the event called IPL.
And if you lose, you have to hold your
nerve and try again to win the next qualifier contest. But if you are Rajat Patidar, a man who wears coolers on his shoulders, then you don’t opt or look for second chances, you try to make the maximum with the chances afforded to you. If you are a certain Rajat Patidar, then you have already hit 8 (eight) boundaries and 3 (three) sixes by the time over number 19th is bowled with one over to play.
And if you are a certain Rajat, then you help your team make batting look easy, tremendously easy. That’s with such behemoth names in your side as Virat Kohli, the man they called King and a trmenrlhsly powerful six hitter in the form of Tim David.
Truth be told, if you are Rajat Patidar; then you help your team to score their highest ever team total in any IPL playoff contest, this time leading from the front in order to help the team amass 254 runs in all. The previous best coming against the mighty MI 3 years ago.
For times to come, Rajat Patidar’s 93 that came off just 33, which doing simple school boy math suggests an overall stay at the wicket for only 5.3 overs, shall stand on top of the most significant knock he ever played in the annals of the Indian Premier League.
Yes he’s scored many a dazzling fifty. But the impressive thing about this knock was that all the big white ball slashers who tend to rule the white ball including Venky Iyer, King Kohli himself and the in from Paddikal had walked back to the dugout.
That is when the earnest and mild mannered captain decided to take things in his own command, transforming ever so quietly the bat into an instrument to engage in carnage. And carnage it indeed was.
At one point; the belligerent right hander was 62 off 29, then 79 off 29 before finally ending unbeaten for 93, and in doing, he scored nearly 40 percent of the team’s total.
The shots- each as remarkable as reading Shakespeare’s sonnets were vivid and just as captivating. Whether it was the gun barrel straight hit down the ground. The ramp shot or the exuberant one handed cut over point for a six. Immaculate timing. Laced with power and not to forget, surgical precision.
The great men - act on their own and leave nothing to chance. Tonight Dharamshala saw for real what this great in the works called Patidar can do.
