Shardul Thakur


Shardul Narendra Thakur is an Indian cricketer who plays first-class cricket for Mumbai. He was a member of the Kings XI Punjab, Mumbai cricket team and India A cricket team. Currently, He is a member of the Indian cricket team and plays for Chennai Super Kings in IPL. In March 2017, he played for the team Rising Pune Supergaints.

Domestic career

Earlier in his school cricket, he hit 6 sixes from 6 balls in an over while representing Swami Vivekanand International School, Borivali. He made his First-class debut against Rajasthan cricket team at Jaipur in November 2012. He did not have a good start to his career as he took four wickets at a bowling average of 82.0 from his first four games. In 2013–14 Ranji season, he took 27 wickets at 26.25 from six games, with one five-wicket haul. In the 2014-15 Ranji season, he took 48 wickets at 20.81 from ten games with five five-wicket hauls.
In 2015-16 Ranji Trophy final, he took eight wickets against the Saurashtra cricket team and led Mumbai cricket team to win its 41st Ranji Trophy title.

International career

He was named in India's 16-man squad for India's Test tour of West Indies in 2016, but he did not play. In August 2017, he was named in India's limited-overs squad for the series against Sri Lanka. He made his One Day International debut on 31 August 2017 against Sri Lanka.
He became the second Indian cricketer to wear the number 10 jersey after Sachin Tendulkar, which raised various controversial comments in social media. Later, he changed his jersey number to 54 due to controversy. On 29 November 2017, Board of Control for Cricket in India retired Tendulkar’s No. 10 jersey.
He made his Twenty20 International debut for India against South Africa on 21 February 2018.
In March 2018, he was selected to play in the 2018 Nidahas Trophy. In a match against Sri Lanka he took a career best 4-27 to bring the game back to India's favour, winning the Man Of the Match award. He finished with 6 wickets from 5 matches at an average of 29.33.
In May 2018, he was named in India's Test squad for the one-off Test against Afghanistan in June 2018, but did not play.
In October 2018, he made his Test debut against the West Indies, making him the 294th player to represent Team India in Tests. His debut ended after bowling just 10 deliveries due to suffering from a groin strain in his right leg.

IPL career

He was signed up by Kings XI Punjab for INR 2 million at the 2014 IPL player auction for 2015 season of Indian Premier League and made his debut against Delhi Daredevils where he took one for 38 in his 4 overs. In March 2017, he was acquired by the Rising Pune Supergiants for the tenth season of the IPL. In January 2018, he was bought by the Chennai Super Kings in the List of 2018 Indian Premier League personnel changes.
Thakur played less matches in 2019 Indian Premier League for Chennai Super Kings. Though he played in the Final where he took 2 wickets against Mumbai Indians. Chennai however failed to win the IPL title in 2019 after Thakur got out LBW when 2 runs were needed of the final delivery.