Rajat Patidar: Madhya Pradesh’s ‘Hanuman’ delivers for RCB

“Rajat sankat-mochan hai hamare team ka [Rajat is the problem-solver (another name for Lord Hanuman) of our team]. He has played such kind of innings before but as none came on TV, people didn’t know about him earlier. Now that he has scored (on Wednesday night), he has certainly become the Hanuman of RCB,” Ishwar Pandey, the veteran quick bowler, tells The Indian Express about his Madhya Pradesh team-mate.

Patidar has been enjoying on the home circuit for MP since 2015 and has rescued his group from precarious conditions a number of instances prior to now. But having performed 4 video games for Royal Challengers Bangalore within the Indian Premier League 2021, he had gone unsold on this yr’s public sale.

A month after the public sale, in March, Patidar received a name from RCB head coach Sanjay Bangar, who instructed him that the franchise was considering bringing him on board as a substitute participant. So Patidar was again on the franchise once more, rather than the injured Luvnith Sisodia. And on Wednesday, he was trending on social media after cracking a thunderous unbeaten 112 off solely 54 deliveries within the Eliminator towards Lucknow Super 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) May 25, 2022

The 28-year-old Patidar hails from a enterprise household, who’re producers of pipes used for irrigation. His household wished him to focus on the enterprise if his cricket didn’t work out however Patidar had different concepts. “He always wanted to play cricket and his interest towards his family business was last,” Pandey says. “He just loved playing and the good part was that he never shied away from working hard.”

Patidar had began as a bowler and focussed on his batting solely after his Under-15 days. Just a few years later, he overhauled his batting method and strategy underneath the steerage of former India batsman Amay Khurasia and has since gone from energy to energy.

Things additionally modified when Patidar met with a knee harm that resulted in a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and required surgical procedure. He got here again as a distinct participant who wished to attain one thing main. He started to play massive and essential innings.

Pandey recollects how he as soon as confronted Mohammed Shami and Ashok Dinda with grace in a Vijay Hazare Trophy sport towards Bengal in his debut season. That day within the dressing room, his team-mates have been in awe of his timing, similar to these watching in Kolkata on Wednesday.

“The manner he was hitting Shami and Dinda, we noticed a distinct class that day. He has that further time. It was then that we knew this boy will do one thing for himself.

“When he scored 196 against Tamil Nadu in a Ranji Trophy match (in 2018-19), he just dominated like a pro who had played a large number of first-class games. But the fact was he didn’t have too much experience at that point. But he had the class which many are finally watching now,” Pandey stated.

Having lengthy established himself within the MP facet whereas hardly anybody was watching, Patidar has scored seven first-class centuries and in addition has three home one-day tons. But it’s his newest three-figure knock, solely the fourth ever by an uncapped Indian participant within the IPL, that has introduced him consideration after years of enjoying the position of sankat-mochan for Madhya Pradesh.