India suffered a rare failure in the ongoing Hong Kong Sixes tournament as they registered a string of four consecutive defeats which officially eliminated the Blue Brigade from the quarter-final race. The Men in Blue currently being led by Robin Uthappa have failed to register a single victory in this tournament and will conclude their campaign on a sour note without a win under their belt.

India commenced their campaign by playing the opening match of their tournament against their old foe Pakistan. India has predominantly had the upper hand over their arch-rivals in major cricketing events but contrary to everyone’s expectations, the Indians were taken aback as Pakistan chased down a galloping 120 runs inside five overs in one of the most one-sided fashions. 

But the final nail in the coffin came when India took on a fairly inexperienced UAE side in their second match of the tournament. They were in desperate search of a win to stay in the race. While many expected India to win quite comfortably, UAE held their nerve to steal a narrow one-run victory from India in the final over of the run chase. At that moment, it was all but over for team India. The team subsequently went on to face England and New Zealand in their remaining fixtures but finished winless.  

The intense last-over drama which left India heartbroken

Coming into this fixture after a shocking defeat in their earlier match against Pakistan, Robin Uthappa & Co. found themselves in a high-pressure situation. UAE got off the flyer with the bat but Binny’s 3-31 restricted them to 130. The target of 131 was still going to be fairly tricky but Bharat Chipli gave the Blues a blazing start, smocking 20 in the first over before getting out. But they were soon jolted when they lost Chipli and Tiwari in quick succession giving UAE a window of opportunity to seal the game prematurely. 

But then the skipper arrived and together with Binny, the two dug in there and took the game deep for India. Uthappa went all guns blazing and hammered 43 runs off 10 balls which included three fours and five sixes. He was going along smoothly but Zubair got the better of him in the last ball of the fourth over and had him dismissed when the score was 83-3.

India needed 32 in 6 balls:

Stuart Binny - 4,WD,6,6,6,6,1. India lost by just 1 run. 💔 pic.twitter.com/qyhKWWyqe6

— Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) November 2, 2024

However, Binny continued to shine with the bat and kept India in the run chase with the help of his brute hitting. The game eventually progressed to the last over of the run chase where 32 runs were needed. Asif Khan from UAE was tasked with bowling the final over and he was greatted by a boundary first ball followed by a wide the second ball.

Binny then pressed his foot on the accelerator a lot further and went on to tonk four consecutive sixes before being run out on the final ball leaving India agonizingly short by one run. Binny clobbered 30 runs in that over but India fell by a narrow margin as they had way too much on their plate during the final over of the run chase.  

India batter Robin Uthappa has retired from all forms of international and Indian cricket, including the IPL, to play overseas T20 leagues. Uthappa has obtained a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from Kerala, the last state he played for in domestic cricket, and will be allowed to take up overseas assignments as new T20 leagues come up in South Africa and the UAE early next year.

Uthappa made his international debut in 2006 and played 46 ODIs and 13 T20Is, and was part of the team that lifted the inaugural T20 World Cup in 2007 in South Africa. He additionally won several domestic titles with Karnataka and won the IPL two times: with Kolkata Knight Riders in 2014 and with Chennai Super Kings in 2021.

A Successful Career

• Uthappa began his domestic career in 2002-03 with Karnataka and finished it with Kerala in the shortened 2020-21 season. 
• He also represented Saurashtra during the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons. 
• He played 142 first class matches, scoring 9446 runs with 22 centuries while averaging almost 41, and scored one more 6534 runs with 16 hundreds out of 203 one-day games to average 35.31. 
• In 291 T20 games, the remainder of which he played in the 2022 IPL for Super Kings, he scored 7272 runs while striking at 133.08.

He played every one of the 15 seasons of the IPL and represented as many as six teams in the competition: Super Kings, Knight Riders, Mumbai Indians, Pune Warriors, Royal Challengers Bangalore and Rajasthan Royals. He amassed 4952 runs in 205 IPL games, striking at 130.35 and averaging 27.51.

Uthappa was known for his aggressive batting, which earned him an international debut in 2006, yet he was dropped soon after the 2007 T20 World Cup due to poor form in 2008. The year prior to playing his last few matches for India in 2015, he accomplished a rare treble with Karnataka, who won the Ranji Trophy, Irani Cup and the Vijay Hazare Trophy in the 2013-14 season. He followed that with a stunning IPL for Knight Riders in 2014, finishing the season as the tournament’s leading run-scorer with a count of 660 runs while striking at 138.

ALSO READ: SC order permits term extension to Ganguly & Shah

He was rewarded with a return to the Indian side for tours through Bangladesh and Zimbabwe in 2014 and 2015 yet unassuming returns implied he was left out once more. In between, he led the run charts in the 2014-15 Ranji Prize season as Karnataka became the first domestic team to repeat their title-winning streak.