Saurabh Tiwary shakes off West Zone’s grip, T20 tag

It seemed unlikely Tiwary would make the deadline. He cracked all his joints and drank a couple of glasses of milk. Eventually he changed, packed his stuff and walked to the team bus.

Surprisingly he hadn’t kept his teammates waiting, although it’s unlikely he would have copped much stick if he had.

The 24-year-old from Jharkhand was responsible for bringing some parity to the contest, which appeared to be slipping away after his side had conceded a 44 run first innings lead. His 167-ball-109 — his eleventh first-class ton — and the 181-run stand he put on for the fourth wicket with Sudip Chatterjee, who was run out on 99, helped East declare their second innings on 281/7 after being 36/3 after 18 overs.

Tiwary doesn’t immediately strike you as a first-class cricket hero. Indeed, he is predominantly known as a creature of the IPL. While Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja, his teammates in the 2008 World Cup winning Under-19 team, have carved out a wider niche, Tiwary seems stuck in a loop as the T20 slogger with long hair, thick chains, a big paycheck and with a physical similarity to Jharkhand’s other famous batsman.

Order in chaos

Tiwary though warrants a look beyond first impressions. In the midst of a mostly haphazard East Zone dressing room, his own space is remarkably ordered. Pads and guards of various kinds and pairs of shoes are neatly laid out. He followed the same procedure even when returning to the pavilion at the stroke of lunch, when he shed much of his equipment on the field. “Everything has to have its proper place,” he explained.

That’s much the same way Tiwary feels about his batting abilities. “Each form of cricket has its value and I want to perform in every version. I can’t do much about the fact that I am termed an IPL player. If you look at my first-class record, it will prove that I have performed in domestic matches as well,” he said.

Only last season, Tiwary had hit a double century against defending champions Mumbai. And having missed the 2014 IPL season with a shoulder injury, Tiwary continued to burnish his first-class reputation, something he did on Friday as well. He claims to have chosen his moments against the West Zone attack.

“I don’t go about chasing every ball. I was judging each ball and deciding when I have to attack and when to defend,” he said. While there were moments of T20 style mayhem in his three sixes and nine boundaries, each of them was a low-risk shot in the V.

As his partnership with Chatterjee grew, Tiwary found a way to counter the West’s strategy of restricting the run flow. “Initially I was taking the leg stump guard because I was conscious that they were bowling at the stumps. But after I had got my start, I had to change my guard to a middle stump one because they were bowling wider while packing the off field.”

While victory is still uncertain, Tiwary hoped he could continue his first-class run. “Important, both because it is the start of the season and because it is the red ball. The value of these runs is higher,” he said.

Brief scores: West Zone 322 & 12/1 (V Zol 6, A Tare batting 5; A Dinda 1/4) versus East Zone 278 & 281/7 dec (S Tiwary 109, S Chaterjee 99; D Kulkarni 4/28)