One over left. Gujarat Titans (GT) needed 11 runs with three wickets in hand. Shubman Gill, their regular captain who sat out this game with muscle spasms, was left to chew his nails in nervousness.
In stark contrast, the nerveless Tushar Deshpande nailed one yorker after another in the middle to stun Ahmedabad. He celebrated his death-bowling masterclass with an Imran Tahir-esque sprint before thumping the Rajasthan Royals (RR) badge on his jersey and gesturing that Ahmedabad was now his territory.
Bowling in the death is no unfamiliar territory for Deshpande. Chennai Super Kings (CSK) trusted him to perform the role that Dwayne Bravo once did for them. Because Deshpande had defensive skills that could often turn a batter’s strength into a weakness.
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Yet, it felt like it was a big call from RR to toss the ball to Deshpande for that over, especially when they had an over each from Sandeep Sharma, who had denied MS Dhoni and other finishers in the death in the recent past, and Nandre Burger, the South Africa left-arm quick who plays T20 cricket around the world.
Deshpande’s plan was simple: go for the yorker. Executing that ball is anything but simple. There is actually no margin for error. Overpitch it, it becomes a full-toss. Under-pitch it, it becomes a slot ball. Sometimes, even if you execute it, little edges can squeeze the ball away to the boundaries behind the wicket. Then there are some funky batters who try to shuffle across the stumps and play the scoop from the blockhole.
Bowling yorkers is a job for super-specialists in T20 cricket. At one point, Mumbai Indians had two in Lasith Malinga and Jasprit Bumrah. One of them bowled an all-time great slower yorker in an IPL final to give his team the title. For CSK, Bravo came alive at the death for a number of years. After that, Deshpande went from being a net bowler to a death bowler for CSK.
Tushar Deshpande landed his yorkers perfectly in the final over BCCI
Deshpande’s skills are not comparable to these stalwarts’, but he has always had the will to pick up the slack for his team when under pressure. On Saturday, with ten to defend in the final over, he conceded just four and closed it out.
Against the left-handed Kagiso Rabada, Deshpande went for the outside-off yorker, with protection at sweeper cover and deep point. Ravindra Jadeja, one of the best fielders in the world, was stationed at sweeper cover.
Deshpande’s first ball to Rabada was speared past the tramline, resulting in an off-side wide. But Deshpande didn’t veer from that plan and had Rabada jamming the first legal ball of the over to Jadeja for a single.
Against Rashid Khan, Deshpande had three men out on the leg-side boundary and went for the stump yorker.
Overall, he bowled four inch-perfect yorkers to Rashid and Rabada.
He then missed his length with the fifth ball and shifted his line wide of off, with only deep third and sweeper cover out on the boundary on the off side. It landed in the slot. Rashid used his fast hands to scythe ball in the air. It seemed destined to travel to the cover boundary until Jofra Archer ran across and dived to his right to pull off a screamer with both hands.
With GT needing seven off the final ball, Deshpande missed the stump yorker marginally. It came out as a low full-toss. But it was still a difficult delivery to put away. It skidded into No. 10 Ashok Sharma, who could only manage an inside edge onto his pad. Deshpande FTW.
Everyone wanted a piece of Deshpande. Burger and Sandeep rushed to him and gave him bear hugs. RR’s original Rockstar Jadeja and their newest rockstar Vaibhav Sooryavanshi patted him on the back. Shimron Hetmyer lifted him off the ground. Dhruv Jurel, who had set the game up for RR with a career-best 75 off 42 balls, gave Deshpande a peck on his forehead.
Tushar Deshpande was the toast of the town CREIMAS
It turned out that Jurel had a hand in Deshpande bowling the last over. “I was actually going to switch up the order,” RR captain Riyan Parag revealed 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 wasn’t part of RR’s bowl-first XI in their opening match of the season against CSK in Guwahati. Rookie Brijesh Sharma got the nod ahead of him and came away with the wicket of Kartik Sharma, who made CSK spend INR 14.2 crore on him at the auction. On Saturday, Deshpande came off the bench and made his captain go wild.
“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.”
Just as the clock ticked towards midnight, the camera crew crowded around Parag to capture his emotions, but he pointed them to Deshpande, Parag’s star of the night, who had the final say in the first thriller of IPL 2026.