Suresh Raina
Suresh Raina - one of the most productive Indian cricketers
Suresh Raina is a professional Indian cricketer. He is considered one of the best players in the batsman’s position. He spent two seasons as the captain of the Gujarat Lions and currently serves as the vice-captain of the Chennai Super Kings.
During his 19-year career, he was noted for dozens of personal achievements and records. The athlete is considered the first Indian batsman to score a century in all three formats of cricket and one of the youngest captains of the national team. According to experts, Suresh Raina has made a significant contribution to the popularization of cricket in India. The player showed the greatest success in the ODI and T20 format.
Suresh Raina: brief information about the player
Suresh Raina’s desire to play cricket was instilled by his father, a retired military man. At the age of 14, he offered his son to choose between service and professional sports. Thanks to this ultimatum, a new star will soon shine on the Olympus of cricket. However, before the start of his professional career, Raina managed to graduate from Specialist Government Sports College, for which he had to move to another city.
The debut of the future superstar occurred in 2005 against Sri Lanka. At that time, the 19-year-old “Sonu” just came on as a replacement for the injured Yuvraj Singh, but, as a result, he gained a foothold in the team for many years.
The talent of the batsman was revealed in the modern version of cricket. Experts agree that this was facilitated by the natural flair and Suresh’s automated skills to assess the situation on the field, finding gaps instantly. Despite this, it took some time for the athlete to fully learn this skill.
The early years were not so productive. The real success came to “Sonu” in the 2008/09 season, when the athlete moves to Chennai Super Kings. The first years in Chennai proved to be extremely important in the batsman’s career. The product of his dedication on the field was the growth of personal performance and team-wide victories, and the re-signing of the contract in 2011 and 2014 is only an actual confirmation of this.
However, in 2016, the Super Kings refuse the services of an athlete who finds a place in the Gujarat Lions. Moreover, the new club found Raina worthy of the captaincy, which he holds for two seasons of his stay in Gujarat. It seemed that his playing qualities would suffer from the new position, but 399 runs and 15 innings for the season put everything in its place.
However, Suresh remained loyal to his previous club, where he maintained a good relationship with the legend of cricket – MS Dhoni. Their friendship turned out to be so close that Raina was called “Thala” (junior) on the sidelines of Dhoni’s. In 2018, Bombardier re-joins the Chennai Super Kings.
The real loss for the whole cricket was the August (2020) statement of the player on the Instagram network about the end of his international career. Raina motivated his decision with the same desire as his best friend and teammate, MS Dhoni.
Suresh Raina: achievements
Suresh is considered one of the most productive Indian cricketers. Sonu has dozens of awards and records on his account, some of which are still relevant.
Achievements at the international level:
- the third in the world and the first batsman from India to score a century at T20I;
- the first Indian batsman to reach centuries in all formats of cricket;
- The twelfth player from India to hit a century in his Test debut;
- The first Indian player to score 8000 runs in Twenty20 in his career.
The athlete was no less successful in the national championship, where he also managed to become the author of several records:
- The first ever cricketer to reach 5000 runs in the IPL;
- the most productive CLT20 player (842 runs);
- the longest performance for one team (Chennai Super Kings) and not only.
It is not for nothing that the Indian is considered one of the best batsmen in the world, who can create pressure as a fielder if necessary. However, a clear confirmation of its universality is considered to be a couple of “Sonu” records that have not been submitted to anyone.
Suresh Raina: interesting facts
At the moment, Suresh Raina is one of the highest-paid Indian players. During his long career, the cricketer earned about $ 25 million, most of which is accounted for by professional activities. The rest of the capital is extracted outside the field, mainly through numerous advertising contracts.
Today, the player owns several properties across the country and an impressive fleet of luxury cars, such as Porsche Boxter S or Mercedes Benz.
He is married to his girlfriend Priyanka Raina. In 2020, the couple had a daughter, Gracia.
Recently, a really interesting case happened to the player. Suresh Raina has always been perceived only from the positive side, but in December 2020, his name got into all the news bulletins of the yellow press. As the headlines read: the cricketer violated the rules of self-isolation, for which he was arrested and fined a large sum. Subsequently, it turned out that the athlete was not at all a violator of the curfew established in India at that time, but he actually paid a fine.
The reason for the generosity of the 34-year-old batsman was the friendly help of the former wife of actor Hrithik Roshan, fashion designer Susan Han and singer Guru Randhawa. The participants of the incident confessed to what they had done, agreeing that this mistake was intentional. All the persons involved in the incident brought official statements and thanked the cricketer for his timely support.
