Then, Avesh Khan scored his third consecutive top hit. Digvesh Rathi disappeared from the stands many times. Mohammad Shami was not spared. In the blink of an eye, Uwel’s singles tally has soared to 13-ball 50, the fastest in IPL history.Buried in that chaos is another remarkable record.Uvir became the first batsman in IPL history to hit six sixes in the first eight balls of an innings. While he faced just 8 overs, he had already scored 41 runs, easily surpassing the previous highest score (33 runs) after 8 balls in IPL history.An emotional Uvel celebrated the milestone with a handwritten note that read: “Dad, this is for you.”When he ended with 65 off just 23 balls, including eight towering sixes, CSK took firm control of the chase and eventually sealed victory by four balls.But to those who knew Uwell closely, this wasn’t crazy. This is a meticulous exercise. The wicketkeeper-batsman had warned his coach three days before the match.

“May I shine”

On Sunday night, he certainly made that point. “He said, ‘I’m going to play a major role in the first game of the day’. Very confident. But there was no idea at that time how much of a buzz it would create,” Uvir’s coach Prakash Patani told TOI.The aggressive right-hander only got a long spell in the CSK XI after Ayush Mhatre suffered a hamstring injury. Yet in just four games, the intent is clear.Even before the LSG massacre, the signs were there. In the first match against the Gujarat Titans, Uwel scored just 4 runs, but he bounced back with a brilliant performance of 24 off 12 balls, including two fours and two sixes, against the Mumbai Indians. The ensuing match against Delhi Capitals saw them score 9 for 17, which, while not a high score on paper, still included two towering sixes.No matter the situation, offense has always been Uwell’s motto. Renowned commentator Ian Bishop summed it up perfectly on the air during the DC game. “He is a no-nonsense batsman. That’s what CSK needs.”

Urvil Patel’s 200-a-day six-wicket obsession

The six-hit phenomenon that Uwell became was not just the product of chance or natural instinct, but the result of deliberate training, discipline and sharp focus heading into IPL 2026.Uwell has made power-hitting a core focus in his preparations for the 2026 IPL. Behind the scenes, the Gujarat batsman is training brutally around a staggering target: hitting 200 sixes a day.According to coach Prakash Patani, Uvir persevered and accepted the challenge at the PCCC Academy cricket ground near New Gunj Bazar in Palanpur, Gujarat.“He once hit 200 sixes in a day. This is his preparation for IPL 2026. Hitting one or two sixes is fine, but hitting eights consistently at this level is not easy. There’s a lot of hard work behind it,” Patani said.“He did not miss a single day and the process lasted for more than a month. He used to come at 5 am and practice till 1 pm or sometimes 2 pm with a short break in between. Most of the time, we did not even use the bowling machine. I bowled to him with the help of a robotic arm. He practiced only with the Kookaburra,” he added.“He is full of desire. He is determined to do well in this IPL. He always says, ‘mujhe mauka mila hai, kuch logon ko milta hai; main kuch alag karna chahta hoon’ (I get this opportunity from very few people. I want to do something different).”

Uvel and his coach Prakash Patani (special arrangement)

Urvil Patel: Elite six-batsman

Statistically, he already is. In T20 cricket, one of the simplest ways to measure six-over efficiency is batting per six: essentially how many deliveries a batsman needs to clear the ropes. The lower the number, the more devastating a hitter is.Uwel hit 90 sixes in just 841 balls in T20 cricket, which gave him a staggering strike-per-six rate of 9.34. This puts him in elite territory.Among the leading T20 power batsmen, only a few have batted below the 10-per-6-ball standard:

Urvil Patel, an elite six-batsman (AI-generated photo)

For context, Uwell is currently hitting sixes more often than Glenn Maxwell, Heinrich Klassen, Suryakumar Yadav, Rohit Sharma.His six-hit frequency equates to 10.7 sixes per 100 balls: a figure that places him firmly among T20 cricket’s super-elite ‘six-batsmen’.Of course, sample size matters. Most of the names on this list have maintained those numbers across thousands of goals in multiple leagues around the world. But purely from the perspective of six-hit efficiency, Uvel is already rare.

Dhoni bat connection

Ahead of IPL 2026, Uvir also received a special set of bats, which included one from legendary India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni.“He got a bat from Dhoni. It had a heavy underhand. He was practicing in the CSK nets with that bat. In fact, he even told Dhoni that the bat felt a bit heavy. Dhoni told him, ‘This will help you hit big sixes, practice with this’,” Patani revealed.“Uwell used this bat during training in the CSK nets, and later bought a custom-made bat with a slightly heavier bottom hand. This is the bat he used against LSG.”Uvir has always looked up to Dhoni as a wicketkeeper-batsman.“He was grateful to share the dressing room and the court with such a legend. Dhoni told him, ‘How you play is how you play. “Agar achha cricketer banna hai to hamesha zameen pe rehna’ (Play the way you naturally play. If you want to be a great cricketer, always keep your feet on the ground),” the coach said.

The ruthless six-batsman in domestic cricket

Uwell’s six-hit reputation didn’t start in the IPL. During the 2024-25 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, he hit 28 T20 centuries, the fastest by an Indian and the second-fastest in men’s T20 cricket, including 12 sixes. A week later, he also hit a 36-ball hundred against Uttarakhand, hitting 11 sixes again. In Class A cricket, he has 41 centuries – the second fastest after an Indian Yusuf Patan.In fact, Uwel hit 29 sixes in six innings that season, surpassing the likes of Abhishek Sharma (7 for 18), Priyansh Arya (9 for 23) and Rajast Patidar (9 for 27). This is not a one-season miracle.The following season, Survival hit 18 sixes in 7 innings, but most notably, he ended the game with the second-highest strike rate among the lowest. He has faced 50 balls this season (243.75), trailing only Abhishek Shama’s 243.75.Uwell was first picked by the Gujarat Titans for a base price of Rs 20 lakh ahead of IPL 2023, but did not play a single match during his time with the team. He was eventually released ahead of the 2024 IPL auction.Despite a strong domestic showing, he surprisingly went unsold again in the IPL 2025 auction. His fortunes changed when Chennai Super Kings signed him for the 2025 season as a replacement for Vansh Bedi’s injury. He played three matches that year before being retained for Rs 30 lakh ahead of the 2026 IPL.Now, after a memorable night of six-hit destruction, CSK may have found what they were looking for: a fearless boundary hunter built specifically for modern T20 cricket.