2021 IPL, Rajasthan Royals versus Punjab Kings last over, Aiden Markram and Nicholas Pooran on the crease. 4 runs required from 6 balls, Markram on strike, and the bowler was Kartik Tyagi. Win looks like an obvious outcome for Punjab. First ball, a full toss, around off, as Markram hit to the fielder at covers, but no run came. Win is still looking easy, as 4 runs needed from 5. Tyagi bowls fuller around off as Markram swings towards deep fine leg, for one. Pooran on strike, and PBKS needs 3 off 4 balls. Again, a fuller ball, a bit tilted, but Pooran, who looked to guide it to the off side, got a thin outside edge and got gloved by the keeper, Sanju Samson. PBKS now needs 3 off 3. Deepak Hooda on strike. Tyagi gave a fuller but wider one to the outside off, but Hooda failed as he edged it to Samson, not before a drop. 3 needed of 2. Tyagi bowls another wide outside off, but Hooda, failing to connect, edged it to Samson. Another wicket down; 3 needed of 1 ball. Fabian Allen on the crease. Tyagi throws a perfect yorker, curtails the match with RR winning by 2 runs. A thriller to the fans and a man-of-the-match award to the young guy, who remained unsold in the 2025 IPL mega auction. Sounds disheartening, isn't it? Scattered brilliance of Kartik Tyagi Well, the 24-year-old guy doesn't actually have much to show off unless a few matches, scattered here and there. 3 first-class matches, 17 list A games, and 33 T-20 games he has played so far, bagging 59 wickets. A short span of IPL career starting in 2020 with the Royals then moving to SRH in 2022 and then finally to GT in 2024, has abruptly stopped, better to say, paused in the 2025 Mega auctions. Another incidence happened in 2023 in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, where the Uttar Pradesh prodigy stunned the fans with a 153 km/hour delivery. He consistently delivered thunderous balls clocking speeds of over 150 kilometres per hour at Mohali’s Punjab Cricket Association IS Bindra Stadium, rattling the Gujarat batting line-up. No takers for Kartik Tyagi at Rs. 40 lakh.From being a brilliant bowler and making it to the Indian Test squad as a backup during the last BGT, to ending up unsold, Karthik Tyagi’s journey has been one wild rollercoaster!pic.twitter.com/c3r2Nl12tu — Vipin Tiwari (@Vipintiwari952) November 24, 2024 Not only that, the Ravi Shastri-coached Indian team too toured Australia in the 2020-21 Border Gavaskar Trophy with Kartik but did not play him in any Test. Read: LSG owner's remark on Pant sparks KL Rahul incident deja vu How bad was Tyagi in the IPL? The fact that none of the team shoots their chance for him, even at his best price of 75 lakhs, looks shocking. The bloke played overall 20 matches and collected 15 wickets at an average of 10.13. His best performance came in his debut season, 2020 for Rajasthan, when he played 10 matches, his highest; took 9 wickets at an average of 9.61. In 2021, for RR itself, his average improved to 8.85, but played just 4 matches. Kartik Tyagi was one of the notable absentees for the Rajasthan Royals during the India leg of the Indian Premier League 2021 in April-May. He was dealing with an injury that kept him out of the playing XI, and he could only make one appearance against Sunrisers Hyderabad, after which the tournament was suspended due to the rising number of Covid cases in the IPL 2021 bio-bubble. However, the number of matches started reducing significantly due to his years, with playing just 1 match for the Gujarat Titans in 2024 and finishing wicketless.