The Rajat Patidar Story: Talent Meets Opportunity With Luck
RCB’s top scorer in both playoff games was Rajat Patidar. If you didn’t know the IPL‘s motto, ‘where talent meets opportunity,’ the commentators have done a good job in recent days.
However, there is a sound rationale behind the motto. Despite the fact that the cash-rich Indian league has brought fat pay cheques for some of the biggest names in cricket, it has also turned out to be a career opportunity for up-and-coming Indian cricketers, who now have something to aim at other than the nearly impossible India berth.
One such player is the right-hand batsman for Madhya Pradesh, Rajat Manohar Patidar, who is 28 years old and has made the most of his talent at the IPL stage when it really mattered.
Patidar started as a fast bowler but switched to off-spin to make juniors. After undergoing ACL surgery in 2014, Patidar started to bat more seriously under former Indian batsman Amay Khurariya.
He has been an important player of the Madhya Pradesh side over the previous number of years. His List A career hasn’t peaked yet but Patidar has been doing a fantastic job for MP in First Class cricket where he averages above 40, with seven hundreds from 39 matches.
His T20 stats are remarkable, with the batsman averaging 35.11 and striking at 142.31 from 39 games, including nine hundreds and the highest of 112.
Joining RCB
It wasn’t really a surprise when Patidar was selected by Royal Challengers Bangalore in IPL 2021, however the batter was hoping to be drawn in by Kolkata Knight Riders with his colleague Venkatesh Iyer, both of whom were in red-hot form in the 2021 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy.
Patidar was given four chances to shine at the Indian Premier League 2021, but he was unable to do so despite having impressed RCB’s batting instructor Sanjay Bangar during the four-day fitness camp and scored highly in the practise games.
Patidar was preparing for his wedding after a successful domestic season when the 2022 super IPL auction took place, but he did not get any bids. The wedding was scheduled to take place on May 9th, and a hotel room in Indore had already been reserved in preparation for the little event. However, since Patidar found himself back at RCB as a substitute for the injured Karnataka wicketkeeper batsman Luvnith Sisodia, the booking had to be postponed so that it could be rescheduled at a later time.
After scoring 142 runs in the Ranji Trophy match against Kerala, Patidar, in contrast to his performance in 2021, was well prepared to take advantage of this occasion. It is also to the credit of the RCB management that they allowed the exciting hitter permission to go after the bowling, and he returned the trust of the club by scoring vital innings of 52 and 48 against the Gujarat Titans and the Sunrisers Hyderabad respectively.