“Rajat sankat-mochan hai hamare workforce ka [Rajat is the problem-solver (another name for Lord Hanuman) of our team]. He has performed such more or less innings prior to however as none got here on TV, other people didn’t find out about him previous. Now that he has scored (on Wednesday night time), he has surely change into the Hanuman of RCB,” Ishwar Pandey, the veteran rapid bowler, tells The Indian Categorical about his Madhya Pradesh team-mate.
Patidar has been taking part in at the home circuit for MP since 2015 and has rescued his workforce from precarious eventualities a number of instances up to now. However having performed 4 video games for Royal Challengers Bangalore within the Indian Premier League 2021, he had long gone unsold on this yr’s public sale.
A month after the public sale, in March, Patidar were given a choice from RCB head trainer Sanjay Bangar, who informed him that the franchise was once concerned with bringing him on board instead participant. So Patidar was once again on the franchise once more, rather than the injured Luvnith Sisodia. And on Wednesday, he was once trending on social media after cracking a thunderous unbeaten 112 off handiest 54 deliveries within the Eliminator in opposition to Lucknow Tremendous Giants in entrance of a packed Eden Gardens.
1⃣1⃣2⃣* Runs
5⃣4⃣ Balls
1⃣2⃣ Fours
7⃣ Sixes
Recap the Rajat Patidar batting brilliance & the quickest hundred of the #TATAIPL 2022. 🔝 ✨ #LSGvRCB | @RCBTweets
Watch that stroke-filled extravaganza 🎥 🔽https://t.co/6sWBLTcOwm
— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) Would possibly 25, 2022
The 28-year-old Patidar hails from a trade circle of relatives, who’re producers of pipes used for irrigation. His circle of relatives sought after him to be aware of the trade if his cricket didn’t determine however Patidar had different concepts. “He at all times sought after to play cricket and his pastime in opposition to his circle of relatives trade was once remaining,” Pandey says. “He simply beloved taking part in and the great section was once that he by no means shied clear of running exhausting.”
Patidar had began as a bowler and focussed on his batting handiest after his Underneath-15 days. A couple of years later, he overhauled his batting methodology and manner beneath the steerage of former India batsman Amay Khurasia and has since long gone from energy to energy.
Issues additionally modified when Patidar met with a knee damage that ended in a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and required surgical operation. He got here again as a distinct participant who sought after to reach one thing primary. He started to play large and an important innings.
Pandey remembers how he as soon as confronted Mohammed Shami and Ashok Dinda with grace in a Vijay Hazare Trophy sport in opposition to Bengal in his debut season. That day within the dressing room, his team-mates had been in awe of his timing, similar to the ones observing in Kolkata on Wednesday.
“The best way he was once hitting Shami and Dinda, we noticed a distinct magnificence that day. He has that time beyond regulation. It was once then that we knew this boy will do one thing for himself.
“When he scored 196 in opposition to Tamil Nadu in a Ranji Trophy fit (in 2018-19), he simply ruled like a professional who had performed a lot of first class video games. However the reality was once he didn’t have an excessive amount of enjoy at that time. However he had the category which many are after all observing now,” Pandey stated.
Having lengthy established himself within the MP aspect whilst infrequently any person was once observing, Patidar has scored seven first class centuries and likewise has 3 home one-day heaps. However it’s his newest three-figure knock, handiest the fourth ever by means of an uncapped Indian participant within the IPL, that has introduced him consideration after years of taking part in the position of sankat-mochan for Madhya Pradesh.
