Gujarat Titans (GT) batter Rahul Tewatia finished the match against Punjab Kings (PBKS) in some style on Friday to help the team record their third win in three successive games in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022. This extraordinary effort of taking the team over the finishing line by hitting two consecutive sixes put Tewatia in an elite T20 list. Tewatia's twin sixes is only the fourth occasion in T20 history (in all T20s where ball-by-ball data is available) that a team has scored exactly 12 runs off the last two balls to win a match.
The only incident of a similar feat being achieved in IPL was accomplished by MS Dhoni in 2016 for the now defunct Rising Pune Supergiants.
Dhoni had hit Axar Patel for two huge sixes on the last two balls with his team needing 12 to win to help CSK register an unlikely victory.
Two other similar incidents occurred in SLC 2019 and in Champions League 2014.
In the Champions League, all-rounder Mitchell Marsh had hit Robert Frylinck for back-to-back sixes to end the match on the winning side. That had made it the first occasion in T20 cricket history that a team won when they required 12 off the last two balls to win.
Similar was the case with Tewatia. The left-hander's short but explosive three-ball knock turned the game on its head vs PBKS and enabled them to win by six wickets.
Needing 12 off two, Tewatia hit two towering shots over the mid-wicket fence off the bowling of Odean Smith to help GT remain unbeaten in their debut IPL season so far.
An in-form GT will next take on SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) on April 11.