India, April 21 -- On Monday night against the Mumbai Indians, Rahul Tewatia walked in with 12.4 overs left in the Gujarat Titans' run chase of 200 - a mountain to climb. For Tewatia, the finisher, this was uncharted territory.

It wasn't as if he was batting out of position. No.6 is where he had batted the most and had a lot of his success. This happened to be one of those days when GT lost too many wickets too early. For the first time in three years since Shubman Gill, Sai Sudharsan and Jos Buttler came together to make a formidable top order, all of them had got out inside the Powerplay.

"The middle order was undoubtedly exposed today," said GT's batting coach, Matthew Hayden, at the press conference after the 99-run loss to MI. "The...