Chennai Super Kings batter Ambati Rayudu announces IPL retirement, deletes tweet
India Today
Ambati Rayudu has been a rock in the middle order of the Chennai Super Kings and is famous for playing several rapid cameos for the franchise. He was famously ignored for the 2019 World Cup spot.
Chennai Super Kings’ star batsman Ambati Rayudu has said that he will be retiring from the Indian Premier League after the 2022 season. The Hyderabad cricketer, famous for his middle order exploits, has been the pillar for CSK for several years, and is an acclaimed cricketer in the domestic set-up. Rayudu, who is currently 36, is well known for his belligerent knocks for Chennai Super Kings in the IPL. In a career that has spanned 13 seasons in the league, Rayudu has scored 4187 runs from 187 matches, at a strike rate just shy of 130. At the moment, he is the 12th highest run getter of the league, just behind the legendary Gautam Gambhir.
The batsman announced the news via Twitter on Saturday afternoon, but since then the tweet has been deleted.
In the current season of the tournament, the right hander has scored 271 runs at a strike-rate of 124 and has been seen struggling for fitness. He was seen panting after his 78 run innings against Punjab Kings that prompted the commentators to say that he is going to hurt CSK’s momentum. Coach Stephen Fleming later clarified that Rayudu was struggling with an injury in his forearm, which could potentially have been very bad for him due to the attacking nature of his game.
Rayudu hails from Hyderabad and is a veteran of 55 ODI caps for India. At his time with the national team, his consistency was reflected since debut scoring 1694 runs at an average of 47. He was primed for the middle order spot in the 2019 edition of the World Cup, but saw his spot taken away by Rishabh Pant and Vijay Shankar, who were on the rise at that moment. This sparked a huge controversy and debate over the selection call, especially after both players who were selected over him failed in the World Cup campaign. The ugly spat saw Rayudu never played for India again and the right hander announced his retirement from all formats of the game.
However, he chose to overturn his decision and returned to play in the domestic circuit before being picked up by Chennai Super Kings once again.
