Last December, Mukul Choudhary found himself needing 25 off the final over against Delhi to give Rajasthan an unlikely win. He had turned the match into a close one single-handedly, and after bringing the equation down to five off the last ball, he told himself just one thing: “If my work has been honest, this one would go for six too.”It did, IPL scouts took notice, and after a bidding war in Abu Dhabi a few weeks later, Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) grabbed him for INR 2.6 crore.Five months later, at Eden Gardens, Choudhary found himself in a similar situation, only that the stakes were much higher and the pressure of expectations and the number of eyeballs were exponentially higher. LSG’s chances were fading against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and the chase was on the shoulders of a 21-year-old playing only his third IPL game.
The score read 128 for 7, the target was 182, and Choudhary had only new batter Avesh Khan and two more bowlers to follow as partners. Three misses in four balls off Sunil Narine meant Choudhary had scored just two off six deliveries. The jumbotron in the stadium flashed “54 needed off 24”.
But what LSG knew, and KKR didn’t, was Choudhary is filled to the brim with self-belief: “I try to take the game deep,” he said later. “I can win it if I stay till the end.”
Over the next four overs, seven sixes flew off Choudhary’s bat – the next one more audacious than the previous one. The game flipped on its head and LSG completed a win that had all but slipped away from them. Choudhary finished on an unbeaten 27-ball 54. Avesh’s score was 1*.
Choudhary’s innings had dragged to two off eight balls when his first boundary arrived in the 17th over: a slower bouncer outside off dragged to the deep-square-leg fence, it wasn’t the sort of innings, till that point, that would make everyone take notice.
The next ball, though, certainly did. Vaibhav Arora missed the yorker and disappeared over long-on as Choudhary delivered a whip of his wrists and generated power with minimal back lift, unmistakably reminiscent of MS Dhoni.
This was far from being a coincidence because Choudhary is a self-confessed Dhoni fan. Not just the strokes, but the idea of finishing, he later told reporters in Kolkata. “I always wanted to be a finisher like Dhoni,” he said. “I even became a wicketkeeper because of MS sir and the helicopter is one of my favourite strokes.”
But Choudhary is more than just the helicopter shot and Kartik Tyagi found that out when he began the next over with a short, wide delivery first up. Choudhary’s fast hands and long reach sent the ball over long-off for six and it was the perfect start to the 18th over.
And when Choudhary refused a single off the next delivery, he had shown his cards to the world. Choudhary was going to farm the strike and for KKR to win, they’d have to get past him.
So began a battle. The whole KKR camp plotting against a batter playing only his second game under lights. Three balls later, Tyagi missed his length, and Choudhary walloped the full-toss over wide long-on.
Still, 30 off the last 12 balls is not easy. Cameron Green started the 19th over well by digging it short in the first two balls. But he got predictable and Choudhary hung back to swat the third for six over long leg. One fortuitous top-edged four later, the equation read 21 off seven and, going by the evidence, the feeling was Choudhary take a single, retain strike, and try to hit 20 off the final over.
“I knew that a bowler may bowl one good ball or two good balls. But at that stage, I knew he’d miss his length at some point, and I knew I just needed that one chance”
Mukul Choudhary on his mindset
KKR may have thought that too as they offered a packed off-side field. Green went short and wide, but it wasn’t wide enough, and Choudhary crunched a pull with such ferocity that by the time Green could turn to look back, the ball was crashing into the lower stands. With 16 taken off Green’s over, LSG needed a very reachable 14 off the last. The only issue, though, was Choudhary was at the non-striker’s end as Arora ran in to bowl the 20th.
Arora, however, failed to keep Avesh on strike for more than one ball, and with 13 needed off five, this was a one-on-one contest. As Arora walked back to his run-up, Choudhary went down on his haunches to get his bearings.
“I like to go down on my knees and take a breather occasionally,” Choudhary later said. “It allows me to gather my thoughts and push aside all the external noise. I’ve relied on this technique for a long time.”
Arora went short and wide next ball and Choudhary cleared the front leg to hit a a sizzling swat over deep square leg.
Needing only seven runs off four balls, Choudhary had put LSG ahead in the game but Arora changed his angles and went dot, dot – delivering two perfect yorkers. Would Choudhary’s hard work fizzle out when it came down to the final act?
“I was not worried,” Choudhary said. “I knew that a bowler may bowl one good ball or two good balls. But at that stage, I knew he’d miss his length at some point, and I knew I just needed that one chance.”
A star is born: Mukul Choudhary is the latest IPL hero•BCCI
And that chance arrived at 19.5 when Arora went full and wide from around the wicket. Choudhary pounced, using his powerful build and his fluid hands to carve a six over extra cover, perhaps the shot of the evening. LSG could no longer lose in regulation time, and a scurried bye off the final ball completed an improbable chase. As Avesh ran to the dugout in delight, Choudhary fell to his knees, looked upwards and folded his hands in gratitude. When he stood up, Digvesh Rathi was running into his arms.
At the post-match press conference, Choudhary dedicated his Player-of-the-Match award to his father, Dalip. After all, Thursday night was a result of Dalip’s manifestation.
Dalip grew up as a big cricket fan and promised himself, well before his own marriage, that if he had a son, he would make the boy a cricketer.
At the time, it sounded outlandish, but once Mukul was born in Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan in August 2004 to Dalip and Sunita, the family knew what the child would end up doing.
Dalip left his teaching job at a coaching centre and sold his share of the family house to move closer to cricketing infrastructure. He made a risky call to begin a new business in an industry he did not previously know – real estate and hospitality – to bring in more money. That would fuel the dream, he thought.
Sunita, too, changed her routine as cricket took a serious turn in the Choudhary household. She began waking up at 4am to prepare meals and then followed her son to training in the afternoon. She kept a close eye, sometimes glancing from her own classroom towards the ground to ensure he was practising. Eventually, she left her job to be with Choudhary in Jaipur as he joined Aravalli Coaching Centre.
At Aravalli, which has developed a reputation of being a hotbed of talent coming out of Rajasthan, Choudhary’s mentor Vikas Yadav and coach Vijay Golada first thought he would be a better bowler since the teenage years had given him a growth spurt. But seeing his natural six-hitting ability, they moved him into the batting group.
It’s there that he developed his leg-side pick-ups, the straight hits, and the deep-crease positioning that allowed him to turn yorkers into hittable balls. At 18, he was picked by Rajasthan in the Ranji Trophy and at 19, he made his T20 debut.
The step-up, though, was tremendous and he couldn’t make much of a mark. His coaches called Choudhary’s first stint at domestic cricket “a flop”. But he kept saying, “one season has to click if I keep working”.
That season came in 2025-26 when he first top-scored in the Under-23 CK Nayudu Trophy, with 617 runs at an average of nearly 103 and a strike rate of over 142. He was swiftly drafted into the senior Rajasthan T20 side next month for the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, where he got just five innings, but made a lasting impact. A 54 against Mumbai and an unbeaten 62 in that remarkable win against Delhi from lower down the order left him with a strike rate of nearly 199 and an average of 57.66. The IPL call came soon after.
Choudhary’s first big innings is now out of the way, but this can only be the beginning. Justin Langer, his LSG head coach, said last month that Choudhary has the potential to be the “scariest No. 6 or No. 7 in Indian cricket”. The talent is there, but the consistency will have to follow. For now, though, he deserves to bask in the afterglow of a magical innings when he wakes up Friday morning.
Sreshth Shah is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo. @sreshthx
