Suresh Raina

Raina made his ODI debut in 2005 against Sri Lanka at the age of 18. However, his Test debut came only five years later, in 2010, against the same opposition. He scored a hundred on his Test debut (120). He holds the record for having played the most ODIs before making Test debut. He was a part of India's World Cup winning team of 2011. Suresh Raina is an Indian cricketer. He is an attacking left-handed middle-order batsman and an occasional off-spin bowler. He plays for Uttar Pradesh in all forms of domestic cricket and is the vice-captain of Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League. He has also captained the Indian cricket team and is the second youngest player to captain India. He is only Indian to score a century in all three formats of the game. He is also the highest run-getter and has taken the most catches in the IPL.

Early and personal life

Suresh's father Trilok Chand Raina is a retired military officer. He comes from a Kashmiri Pandit family. The Raina family moved in the 1980s from the Rainawari area of Srinagar, Kashmir, to Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh. He lives in Rajnagar, a town in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh. He has 3 older brothers Dinesh Raina, Naresh Raina and Mukesh Raina and 1 elder sister Renu. An article by Suresh Raina was featured in the 2012 book Rahul Dravid: Timeless Steel.

Career

Raina decided to play cricket in 2000, and moved from his city Muradnagar, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh (near New Delhi) to Lucknow, to attend the specialist government Sports College. He rose to become the captain of the Uttar Pradesh U-16s and came to prominence amongst Indian selectors in 2002, when he was selected at the age of 15 and a half years for the U-19 tour to England, where he made a pair of half-centuries in the U-19 Test matches. He toured Sri Lanka later that year with the U-17 team. He made his Ranji Trophy debut for Uttar Pradesh against Assam in February 2003 at the age of 16, but did not play another match until the following season. In late 2003, he toured Pakistan for the U-19 Asian ODI Championship before being selected for the 2004 U-19 World Cup, where he scored three half centuries, including a 90 scored off only 38 balls. He was then awarded a Border-Gavaskar scholarship to train at the Australian Cricket Academy and in early 2005, he made his first-class limited overs debut, and scored 645 runs that season at an average of 53.75. He was selected to participate in the Challenger Series in early 2005, and after injury to Sachin Tendulkar and suspension to captain Sourav Ganguly, Raina was selected for the Indian Oil Cup 2005 in Sri Lanka. 2010 South Africa tour of IndiaIn South Africa's tour to India in 2010, Raina was called in the squad for the second test, but was not selected in the playing XI. He captained the Indian team for the Tri-series against Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe in Zimbabwe as all the other first-choice players were rested from the tournament. India lost the first match under his captaincy against Zimbabwe by six wickets, but won the next match against Sri Lanka. Suresh Raina also captained the Indian Cricket team for the T-20 series against Zimbabwe in June 2010 and India won the 2 match series 2-0.He was the leading run scorer in this series. Virat Kohli and R Ashwin made their T-20 debuts in Raina's captaincy.2010 tour of Sri Lanka:Raina was then brought into the Test squad for the tour of Sri Lanka in July and August 2010. He made his debut in the Second Test after Yuvraj Singh was ill. Sri Lanka made 4/642 declared and India were in trouble at 4/241 when Raina came in to join Sachin Tendulkar. Raina went on to reach a century on debut as the pair put on a double century partnership. Yuvraj recovered in time for the Third Test but the selectors opted to retain Raina. However, due to poor form throughout 2010 (apart from a half century against Australia at Mohali) and a failure to make any impact on the Centurion Test which South Africa won by an innings, he was dropped in favour of rookie Cheteshwar Pujara for the remainder of the series, in which India battled back to a 1–1 draw. 2011 Cricket World Cup: He was on the bench through the first half of the 2011 Cricket World Cup as captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni instead went with the in-form Yusuf Pathan. This remained so until the group game against West Indies, which Raina played in place of an injured Virender Sehwag. Against defending champions Australia in the quarter-final, Dhoni made a strategic change, omitting Yusuf Pathan in favour of Raina. Raina responded by assisting Yuvraj Singh in a successful run chase through high pressure, making 34 from 28 balls to carry India to victory. In the semi-final against Pakistan, he batted with tailenders to score an unbeaten 36, a significant contribution to India's final tally of 260. He also took Younis Khan's catch off of Yuvraj's bowling. Suresh Raina played some crucial knocks in quarter-final and semi-final of the World Cup, which helped India to win the 2011 ICC Cricket worldcup.Gary Kirsten, the then coach of India, said 'Raina won us the World Cup for us with some crucial knocks'. Captaincy and 2011 West Indies tour:India toured West Indies after the World Cup with captain MS Dhoni rested and vice captain Virender Sehwag injured. Gautam Gambhir was named captain for the One dayers and T20's with Raina as his deputy. But due to injury Gambhir was ruled out with Raina captaining with Harbhajan as his deputy. India won the series, but Raina averaged just 16.4. In the Test matches he scored 232 runs at the average of 46.4 scoring crucial fifties in each Test.His captaincy was highly appreciated by former west-Indian legends.2011 tour of England:He was selected for the England tour in July. There was a lot of debate on who should play the first Test at Lord's, Yuvraj or Raina. But a century in a practice match against Somerset sealed a place for him in the playing eleven. Apart from a half-century in the first Test at Lord's, Raina managed just 27 runs from seven innings. He struggled against short bowling and in the final Test was out for a 29-ball duck, the longest in India's Test history. running through a poor form in the Test series especially in the last match made some impact in the 5 match-ODI series though the team was unable to secure a win at all. He top-scored in a rain-affected game at the Lord's scoring a commendable 84 from 75 balls.

Captaincy

in 2011 India toured West Indies after the World Cup with captain MS Dhoni rested and vice captain Virender Sehwag injured. Gautam Gambhir was named captain for the One dayers and T20's with Raina as his deputy. But due to injury Gambhir was ruled out with Raina captaining with Harbhajan as his deputy. India won the series, and his captaincy was highly appreciated by former west-Indian legends. He was again declared captain of the young Indian cricket team during 2014 Bangladesh series in 2014 while all the regular players of Indian cricket were rested. He lead his team for 2-0 victory in the series. His personal performance was also splendid in the low scoring series as he captained the side very aggressively thoroughout the series. He was praised all over the world for his captaincy skills which he displayed during the 2nd ODI of this series.India was allout scoring 104 runs while batting first and Suresh Raina and his young team defended 104 runs and won the match by 54 runs. His captaincy was the deciding factor of this match along with Stuart Binny's bowling performance. Indian Premier League:Raina was signed by the Chennai Super Kings for US$5 million for the first three years of the tournament. Raina made significant contributions in the first edition of the tournament to compensate the Chennai Super Kings over the losses of key players in Matthew Hayden, Michael Hussey and Jacob Oram. He played a vital Man of the Match performance in the last league fixture to give Chennai Super Kings the win they required to qualify for the semi-finals. Ultimately the Super Kings finished as the runners-up of the league with Raina with 421 scoring the most runs for them.
Raina found form in the 2009 IPL scoring 434 runs off the 14 games he had played at a strike rate over 140.00.He made a sensational 98 runs from 55 balls (losing his century due to scoring errors) against the Rajasthan Royals at Centurion. He was the fourth leading-run getter of the tournament and second for the Super kings behind Orange-cap holder Matthew Hayden. Raina also became the fifth economical bowler of the tournament taking 7 wickets in all.
Again in 2010 IPL, Raina's consistent batting throughout the series won him applause and became the all-time run-getter of the league surpassing Australian legend Adam Gilchrist halfway down the tournament.He also captained the Super Kings for three matches in skipper Dhoni's absence and took some sensational catches in the field. He scored 520 runs in all, making him the third highest-run getter of the series and the first for Chennai. He also was awarded "best fielder" by the BCCI ahead of the finals. He played a vital half-century which turned the final to Chennai's tide who ultimately went on to become the champions beating the Mumbai Indians.
At the end of the season, Raina set the record for most runs scored in the tournament, with 421, 434, and 520 and also taking the most no. of catches, two records that are still unbroken. Raina also hit the second maximum no. of sixes behind Adam Gilchrist in the three editions of the league. He was retained by the Super Kings for the 2011 Indian Premier League along with Murali Vijay, Albie Morkel and skipper MS Dhoni.