Highlights
- Suresh Raina is the first Indian player to score a century in all three formats of the game
- Suresh Raina was a part of India's 2011 World Cup winning squad
- Raina has won 4 IPL titles with Chennai Super Kings
Suresh Raina retires: It is the end of an era, an end of a stylish batsman, an end of a prolific fielder, an end of "chinna thala", an end of Suresh Raina's stellar run in international cricket. Suresh Raina who had earlier announced his retirement from international cricket on August 15, 2020, just a few minutes after MS Dhoni has now announced that he is stepping away from the gentleman's game and will not play any form of the game.
Raina, one of the stalwarts of the game both for India and for Chennai Super Kings has been an all-round performer and now enjoys a successful career as a broadcaster. The UP-based batsman, who certainly is one of the finest batsmen that the game has seen debuted for Indi as a teenage prodigy during the Greg Chappell era, the era which sparked many controversies in the Indian cricketing scene. Left-handed Raina, after his debut for India, started to garner praise from all corners of the cricketing fraternity for his effortless style of playing the game and how easily he could go big when there was a need to up the ante. Raina for a brief moment was forced to maintain a distance from the game in the later parts of 2007 owing to a serious injury that was a kind of roadblock for his career.
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But the inception of the Indian Premier League came as a blessing for Raina who was picked up by Chennai Super Kings, a franchise that in many ways is a part of his identity and his legacy. His stupendous show in the Indian Premier League got him back to the Indian cricket team and he was one of the key members of the squad which went on to lift the World Championship in 2011 under the leadership of Mahendra Singh Dhoni. One of the main highlights of Raina's career will be the gritty innings that he played against Australia and Pakistan in the quarter-finals and semi-finals which helped India to qualify for the all-important finals.
Suresh Raina notably is the first Indian player to hit a ton in all three formats of the game but his career hit a lean patch as he kept on struggling after 2014. With young blood like Hardik Pandya, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and Ravindra Jadeja coming in, Raina found it tough to keep his place in the Indian team. But irrespective of everything, Raina kept on playing for the Chennai Super Kings and earned himself the title of "chinna thala".
The left-handed batter who announced his retirement from international cricket on August 15, 2020, wasn't either retained or picked by Chennai Super Kings in the 2022 IPL mega-auctions. Raina has decided to hang his boots and has left behind an unmatched legacy.
