Rajat Bhatia Announces Retirement From All Forms Of Cricket

Veteran Delhi Ranji cricketer and former Kolkata Knight Riders star Rajat Bhatia, on Wednesday, announced he will be retiring from professional cricket with immediate effect.

Born in Delhi, Rajat Bhatia started his domestic career with Tamil Nadu in 1999-2000 season. He spent two seasons with the southern state before he was picked by his home state. Rajat Bhatia went on to represent Delhi until 2015, before having short stints at Rajasthan and Uttarakhand.

Overall, he made a total of 112 Ranji appearances out of which 81 were for Delhi where he’s scored 4666 runs and picked 96 wickets. Overall, he scored 6,482 runs and took 137 wickets in first-class cricket. He was part of Delhi’s Ranji Trophy title win in 2007-08 season and had hit an unbeaten 139 in the final against Uttar Pradesh.

Rajat Bhatia had scored 512 runs in seven outings in that season as Delhi won their first Ranji title since 1991-92 season. But despite being a consistent performance, he never got the chance to make it to the highest level of the game.

He made his mark in the IPL too as he featured in every single season from the inaugural edition of the tournament until the 2017 edition. Rajat Bhatia started his journey in IPL with his home franchise – Delhi Daredevils  and represented them for three seasons.

He then moved to Kolkata Knight Riders and enjoyed his best phase under the captaincy of Gautam Gambhir. He picked 13 wickets in the 2012 season when the Knight Riders won their inaugural IPL title. Those performances helped him bag a lucrative contract in the 2014 auction when Rajasthan Royals paid INR 1.7 crore for his services.

He went on to justify the faith shown in him by the franchise by picking 12 wickets in as many fixtures although the Royals narrowly missed out on progressing to the knockouts. With the bat, he scored a total of 342 runs in the IPL with a season-best of 99 in 2013.

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