Rajat Patidar

Rajat Patidar was one of the Indian picks for Royal Challengers Bangalore during the 2021 auctions of the Indian Premier League. Patidar is a pure top-order batter who plays both pace and spin quite easily.

The top-order batter has come up through the ranks for Madhya Pradesh.  He played for the under-19 and under-22 MP teams and made his First-Class debut in October 2015 against Baroda, where he starred with knocks of 60 and 101, respectively.

A month later, he made his List-A debut in the 2015-16 Vijay Hazare Trophy and flourished well in his maiden season by scoring three hundreds and a fifty in the first 10 outings. 

The stylish right-handed batter made his first T20 appearance against Rajasthan in January 2018.

During the 2020-21 season, he was the man-in-form for Madhya Pradesh and lit both the limited-over formats with his staggering performances. He scored a 51-ball 96 and two back-to-back half-centuries in his Syed Mushaq Ali campaign, while in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, he scored 219 runs that includes a ton and a fifty.

On the back of performances in the white-ball domestic seasons, Rajat Patidar grabbed an IPL contract from RCB, who bought him for INR 20 lakhs for the 14th edition of the Indian T20 extravaganza. After giving him a handful of chances in IPL 2021, RCB released him ahead of the mega auction where he went unsold. 

However, RCB again roped him in as a replacement of Luvnith Sisodia, and this was a career-changing point for him. Patidar came to the season riding on the back of a century in the Ranji Trophy 2022 final against Mumbai that led Madhya Pradesh to the title. He cracked 333 runs in IPL 2022, including a match-winning hundred in the Eliminator versus Lucknow Super Giants.

At a time when his domestic grind was coming to notice, an injury setback hit him, ruling him out of IPL 2023. After undergoing a surgery, he came back to play for his state in the 2023 domestic season with his form showing no signs of regression.

He made it to the Indian team, debuting in an ODI against South Africa in December 2023. He attained his maiden Test call-up for the five-match home series scheduled against England in early 2023.

Patidar failed in the Test series against England at home but he somewhat redeemed himself in IPL 2024, playing for Royal Challengers Bengaluru. The batter smashed 395 runs in 13 outings at a strike-rate of 177.13.

Despite a good season with the bat, the middle-order batter failed to grab the attention of selectors and he wasn’t considered for the T20 World Cup. 

(As of May 2024)