Parthiv Patel

The wicketkeeper-batsman was born on 9 March 1985 in Ahmedabad Gujarat and played first-class cricket from Gujarat. He was the youngest wicketkeeper to feature in a Test match and was backed by Sourav Ganguly vociferously during the early 2000s when the Indian cricket team was looking for youngsters.

Table of Contents

1. Career
2. Background

Career

Domestic Career

A baby-faced Parthiv Patel made his first class debut in 2000 against Haryana. Owning to his excellent batting skills, he was quickly drafted into the national team.

In the year 2015, Parthiv brought up his first List-A hundred to lead Gujarat to their maiden Vijay Hazare Trophy title. The runs began to flow as he racked up four fifties from nine innings in the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament and a century against India A in the Deodhar Trophy.

He is currently the captain of Gujarat team and led his side in the 2016–17 Ranji Trophy.

Beating Odisha and Jharkhand in the quarterfinal and semifinal, the team reached the final for only the second time. In the final in January, they met defending champions Mumbai in Indore. Patel scored 90 in the first inning and 143 in the second and helped beat Mumbai to win first Ranji trophy for Gujarat. Parthiv in his domestic FC career has played 187 matches and scored 10,797 runs at an average of 43.36.

IPL Career

Initially auctioned in the inaugural Indian Premier League (IPL) to Chennai Super Kings, Patel played for CSK for three seasons where he got less chances and proved mostly ineffective. For the fourth season, he was signed by Kochi Tuskers Kerala. After that, the franchise got terminated and Parthiv was picked up by Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2013 and by Royal Challenger Bangalore in 2014.

Patel was signed by Mumbai Indians for the 2015 IPL as an opening batsman. In IPL 2015, Parthiv, after a lukewarm beginning, struck form in the latter half of the tournament and tallied 339 runs to finish as the fourth-leading batsman in Mumbai Indians' victorious campaign. 

During the auction of the 2018 IPL, he was bought by RCB for Rs. 1.7 crore. In the last two seasons for RCB , Parthiv has scored 526 runs in the 20 matches played. The RCB team management will be hoping that Parthiv converts those 30s and 40s into big totals in the 2020 season. The pressure is on Parthiv as youngsters like Devdutt Padikkal are waiting in the wings to grab their chance of opening the innings.

International Career

ODI Career

Patel made his ODI debut against New Zealand in January 2003. He also traveled with the team to South Africa for the 2003 Cricket World Cup, missing out on his high-school board examinations in the process. With the emergence of former captain MS Dhoni, he was sidelined from the national team.

Test Career

Parthiv debuted in the year 2002 against England at Trent Bridge and become Test cricket's youngest wicketkeeper at the age of 17 years and 153 days. He saved the match for India by his unbeaten 19 in the second innings to stave off an innings defeat. Parthiv later went to the tour of Australia and Pakistan where he performed admiringly well but some shoddy glovework behind the stumps meant that selectors started to look for other options. With Dinesh Karthik and MS Dhoni coming into the fold, Parthiv's chances of donning the white flannels diminished.

However, after some eye-catching performances during the A Tours of Zimbabwe and South Africa and consistent performances in the domestic circuit for Gujarat, he made another comeback to the Indian squad for the 2008 series in Sri Lanka. However, he continued to be unreliable behind the stumps and he lost his chance, with Dhoni making a comeback in the subsequent series.

With wicket keeper Wriddhiman Saha injured, Parthiv was called to test team duty for the third test in Mohali. He proved the selectors' decision was right with two good innings including an unbeaten 67 runs from 54 balls in the second innings which led India to victory.

Background

Parthiv was the youngest wicket-keeper in Test history with 17 years of age. During the 2004 Border-Gavaskar series in Australia, he sledged Steve Waugh by saying, “Come on Steve, just one more of your popular slog-sweeps before you quit.” after which Waugh replied him, “Show a bit of respect. You were in nappies when I debuted 18 years ago.”