With just one over remaining, Gujarat Titans (GT) required 11 runs while still having three wickets left. Shubman Gill, the side’s usual captain, had missed the match due to muscle spasms, leaving him watching from the sidelines and hoping the chase would stay under control.
Across the field, Tushar Deshpande looked completely unbothered. He delivered yorker after yorker in the end section, turning the contest on its head for Ahmedabad. After sealing the job with a death-over display, he marked the moment with a sprint reminiscent of Imran Tahir’s celebrations—then slapped the Rajasthan Royals (RR) emblem on his jersey, accompanied by a gesture that made it clear Ahmedabad now belonged to him.
Deshpande’s role in the final overs is not new. Chennai Super Kings (CSK) had previously trusted him to do a job similar to the one Dwayne Bravo used to handle. The reason was simple: Deshpande’s defensive cricket often forced batters to play their strengths in ways that became a problem for them.
Still, the decision by RR to hand Deshpande the ball for that crucial over felt like a significant gamble, particularly considering the options already available—Sandeep Sharma, who had recently troubled MS Dhoni and other finishers during the death overs, and Nandre Burger, the South Africa left-arm quick who has been plying his trade in T20 leagues across the world.
Deshpande’s approach was straightforward: keep firing yorkers. But bowling them is anything but easy. A yorker has very little room for error—overstep the length and it turns into a full-toss; too short and it becomes a slot ball. Even when the execution is right, small mis-hits can still escape into the boundary line behind the wicket. On top of that, some batters try to dance out of their stances and attempt scoops from the blockhole, adding another layer of complexity.
In T20 cricket, yorkers are the domain of specialist death bowlers. At one stage, Mumbai Indians had Lasith Malinga and Jasprit Bumrah, two of the finest in the craft. One of them produced an all-time great slower yorker in an IPL final to hand the title to his team. For CSK, Bravo repeatedly found his peak at the end of innings for years. After that chapter, Deshpande transitioned from a net bowler into a trusted death-over option.
While his skill set may not match those legends at their absolute best, Deshpande has consistently shown the hunger to shoulder responsibility when pressure rises. On Saturday, with ten runs required in the final over, he conceded only four and finished the match off.
Against left-hander Kagiso Rabada, Deshpande targeted the outside-off yorker, setting his field with protection at sweeper cover and deep point. Ravindra Jadeja—widely regarded as one of the best fielders in the sport—was stationed at sweeper cover to back the plan.
His first delivery to Rabada was drilled past the tramline for an off-side wide, but Deshpande did not alter the blueprint. On the very next legal ball, Rabada found himself jammed and the ball went to Jadeja at the sweeper cover region for a single.
When Rashid Khan came on strike, Deshpande spread three fielders along the leg-side boundary and again went hunting for a stump-hitting yorker.
On the fifth ball, Deshpande lost his length and moved the ball wide of off. Only deep third and sweeper cover remained deep on the off-side boundary. The delivery landed in the slot, and Rashid used quick hands to cut it high into the air. It looked set to carry to the cover boundary until Jofra Archer sprinted across and dived to his right, taking a sensational catch with both hands.
With GT needing seven off the final ball, Deshpande missed the stump yorker by a small margin. The result was a low full-toss, yet it was still an uncomfortable ball to clear. The delivery skidded into No. 10 Ashok Sharma, who managed only an inside edge onto his pad. Deshpande’s work was complete—FTW.
After the wicket, everyone wanted to share the moment with Deshpande. Burger and Sandeep rushed in for bear hugs. RR’s Jadeja—described as their original “rockstar”—and their latest signing Vaibhav Sooryavanshi patted him on the back. Shimron Hetmyer lifted him off the ground, while Dhruv Jurel, who had laid the foundation for RR with a career-best 75 off 42 balls, sealed the celebration with a peck on Deshpande’s forehead.
Jurel also played a part in how Deshpande ended up bowling the last over. “I was actually going to switch up the order,” RR captain Riyan Parag said after the match. “So, credit to Dhruv Jurel for that. He asked me to go Jofra on the 19th and the plan was because it was a three-ball difference—it was 15 off 12. I just wanted to take a chance. Go as fast as possible and as aggressive as possible.”
Deshpande had not even been included in RR’s bowl-first XI for their opening fixture of the season against CSK in Guwahati. In that game, rookie Brijesh Sharma got the nod instead and took the wicket of Kartik Sharma—who had cost CSK INR 14.2 crore at the auction. But on Saturday, Deshpande came in from the bench and made the captain’s decision look inspired.
“It was just incredible,” Parag said. “I took a chance, thinking let’s just go full and fast. The way my boys delivered—you can see my voice cracking. I was shouting and so excited at the fact that they executed as they wanted. It was just insane.”
As the clock inched towards midnight, the camera crew gathered around Parag to capture his emotions, but he pointed them toward Deshpande—Parag’s star of the night—who had the final say in the first thriller of IPL 2026.
