image Credit- BCCI
It has been announced that Saurabh Tiwary is retiring
from professional cricket. On February 15 in Jamshedpur, the 34-year-old will
play his last game for Jharkhand as they wrap off their Ranji Trophy season.
Tiwary was eleven when he started playing cricket.
When he was still a teenager, he made his Ranji Trophy debut in the 2006–07
season. In 2008, he won the Under-19 World Cup while playing for the squad
captained by Virat Kohli in Malaysia.
Tiwary’s ascent persisted; in 2010 he was called up by
India for the Asia Cup in June, but he had to wait until October to make his
debut for his country. He scored 419 runs for the Mumbai Indians and Jharkhand
in that same year. He played three ODIs, scoring 49 runs and ended up unbeaten
in two of them.
Tiwary was rather more prolific in domestic cricket,
playing 115 first-class matches across 17 years and amassing 8030 runs in 189
innings at an average of 47.51 including 22 hundreds and 34 fifties.
“It’s a little tough to bid farewell to this
journey that I had started before my schooling,” Tiwary said on Monday at
a press conference at the Keenan Stadium in Jamshedpur. “But I’m also sure
that this is the right time for this. I feel that if you’re not in the national
team and IPL, it’s better to vacate a spot in the state side for a youngster.
Youngsters are getting a lot of chances in our Test team so I’m making this
decision.
“It’s not like I’ve decided this only on the
basis of my performances. You can see my record in Ranji and in the last
domestic season. It’s always asked what I’m going to do next and for now I only
know that cricket is the only thing I know so I’m going to be connected to the
game. I got an offer from politics too but I haven’t thought about that.”
Tiwary’s connection with the IPL was a little erratic.
He was acquired by Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2011 for USD 1.6 million
after his efforts to lead Mumbai to their first final, but he was unable to
achieve the same degree of success in his three years with the new team. After
being sidelined by a shoulder injury in the 2014 Indian Premier League, he
spent a year each playing for the Delhi Daredevils (now the Delhi Capitals) and
Rising Pune Supergiant. He eventually returned to Mumbai in 2021, aged 31,
indicating that his left-handedness and power game were valued qualities in the
shorter format.
After the IPL, Tiwary scores 1494 runs at an average
of 28.73 and a strike rate of 120. Overall, he has 3454 T20 runs with 16
fifties at an average of 29.02 and strike rate of 122.17.