Dhoni lookalike Tiwary finds his own identity

Source: Yahoo.com

Wed, Mar 24 04:11 AM

Until 15 days ago, visiting a movie theatre for Saurabh Tiwary often entailed facing a number of wisecracks about him being a wannabe Mahendra Singh Dhoni. It is no secret that the Jamshedpur-based 20-year-old left-hander — whose straightened hair may seem passe for many Dhoni fans — has idolised Dhoni from the start of his career. But, as Tiwary himself admits, maybe he lost his own style along the way.

He scored 593 runs in the Ranji Trophy Plate Division at an average of 98.83, but it's his 20-run cameos for the Mumbai Indians that are putting the left-hander in the spotlight — a fact the former under-19 World Cup winner is well aware of.

"You cannot compare IPL to domestic cricket because even if you score 20 runs in this tournament, it gets coverage," said a nervous Tiwary as he faced up to scrutiny from the local media. Armed with three cell phones, Tiwary stuck to monosyllabic answers, except when he spoke about his captain — Sachin Tendulkar.

Tiwary has been sent ahead of Mumbai's two overseas players Keiron Pollard and Dwayne Bravo so far and the youngster has lived up to Tendulkar's faith. "In the second match against Delhi, when I was batting with Sachin Sir, we were had a good start and were looking to save our wickets while also looking to score because we had some hard-hitting batsmen to follow, such as Kieron Pollard. It enabled us to score a lot of runs in the final overs and post a total in excess of 200," he said, giving an example of how teams set up strategies in T20 cricket.

The IPL has provided a platform for a number of overnight sensations and, having flowered in the middle-order for his team, Tiwary has suddenly become a recognizable face. And he can safely assume that, when he steps into a theatre on Tuesday evening, he will attract a number of stares — this time for being Saurabh Tiwary, not a Dhoni lookalike.