After being given a solid start by their openers Ajinkya Rahane and Rahul Tripathy, Rising Pune Supergiant were in danger of squandering the start against Royal Challengers Bangalore. They lost five wickets in space of three runs and were reduced to 130 for 7 from 127 for 2 and the remaining bowlers had only 16 balls left to make amends for the damage. And it came from the bat of Manoj Tiwary. The right-handed batsman scored a quickfire knock of 27 runs to guide his team to a respectable total of 161 for 8.
Tiwary had done his homework before coming on to the crease and executed it perfectly. He had observed how Shane Watson bluffed MS Dhoni by bowling a different line and length to the field that was actually set. Taking cue from that, Tiwary prepared himself and when the former Australia all-rounder came to bowl the penultimate over, the Rising Pune Supergiant batsman hit him for three fours and a six and all of a sudden their innings got the much-needed impetus.
Tiwary’s innings eventually made all the difference as Royal Challengers Bangalore were restricted to 134 for 9 courtesy of some fine bowling by Steve Smith’s pacers.
Speaking after the match, Tiwary explained how he managed to get the better of Watson during the penultimate over.
“I was just trying to read the mind of the bowler. What he was trying to do and I was observing from the dugout how he bowled to MS Dhoni. He set up a field and bowled in a different way which is in a way bluffing and that paid him in the form of Dhoni’s wicket. So the kind of field set he placed, I knew that he was going to bowl similar kind of stuff. And once that one bouncer went for wide ball, I knew he was not going to bowl another bouncer. So reading the bowler’s mind was important for me. and he bowled in my areas. Pretty happy to have contributed in that last phase,” he said.
“Obviously, the strike-rate is at the back of the mind. Even in Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy, I had a plan of striking at a very high-strike rate because that’s the demand of this format. i normally try and execute whatever the situation demands and the kind of nature I have in my batting is analysing the situation and playing according to the situation,” he added.
When asked about the pitch where the batsmen consistently struggled to play their shots, Tiwary said:“Wicket was difficult to bat on. If the wicket has a little bit of moisture, it makes shot-playing difficult because it stops and comes. There was something for the bowlers and I think obviously the plan was to bowl back of length, lot of cutters and all just because there was moisture underneath.”