Suresh Raina goes past Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma in T20 Cricket

The 31-year-old rediscovered his form with a swashbuckling century in the Syed Mushtaq Ali tournament against West Bengal.

Published - 24 Jan 2018, 01:19 IST | Updated - 24 Jan 2018, 01:19 IST

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Suresh Raina has had a tough time with the bat recently. He was struggling to pass the Yo-Yo test. The dynamic left-hander batsman was left out of the national team citing his form and fitness issues. Raina last played for India in February 2017. He was out of touch even in domestic cricket. He went to the Netherlands last year to train with India’s former coach Gary Kirsten.

However, even this proved to be of little help for him. But, recently he passed the Yo-Yo test and also seems to have found his touch back. The 31-year-old rediscovered his form with a swashbuckling century in the Syed Mushtaq Ali tournament against West Bengal. He scored a 126 off just 59 deliveries at a staggering strike rate of 213.56. He got to his century in just 49 balls and proved his worth in the shortest format.

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Suresh Raina was earlier retained by the Chennai Super Kings in the IPL for a whopping Rs. 11 crore. He has been the face of the IPL and is very consistent in the league. Also, Raina has a special liking for the shortest format of the game and he can be deadly. Moreover, Raina remains to be an IPL legend with maximum matches (161) and runs (4540) at an excellent strike-rate of 139.09.

Raina continued with his good form after scoring that century. In the match today against Tamil Nadu, he scored 61 off just 41 deliveries at a strike rate close to 150. He struck seven fours and a six. In this process, he surpassed Virat Kohli to regain the throne as the leading T20 run scorer for India.

Ahead of today’s game, Raina needed 16 more runs to surpass Kohli as India’s top run-getter in the shortest format of the game. Kohli played in 226 T20s and has accumulated 7,068 runs. Raina now has 7,114 runs under his belt in 266 T20s. On the third position, is Indian opener Rohit Sharma, who has 6,825 runs under his belt in the bang-bang version. However, Virat is still the leading run scorer for India in T20Is.