Rajat Bhatia

Rajat Bhatia (born 22 October 1979 at Delhi, India), is an Indian cricketer. An allrounder, he has been playing domestic cricket for over 10 years, representing many teams, such as the Tamil Nadu cricket team, his home state, the Delhi cricket team and Delhi Daredevils Kolkata Knight Riders and Rising Pune Supergiants in the IPL. He was a part of the MRF Pace Foundation when he was young.^[1]

He was quite unfortunate not to be on the selectors' radars. He was instrumental in Delhi's Ranji Trophy title win in 2007, thanks to his 512 runs in 7 matches. He has been very successful in his first-class career, taking 76 wickets at 29.21, and has also scored nearly 4000 runs at an average of nearly 50, scoring the runs mostly at crucial times when his team needed them the most. In 2010 IPL, he took nine wickets in nine matches for his team, Delhi Daredevils. In 2011, he played a major role in Kolkata Knight Riders getting into the top four and qualify for the Champions League Twenty20 for the first time.^[2]

He was bought by Rajasthan Royals at the 2014 IPL auction for Rs.1.7 crore.

Career

Under-19

Bhatia has played four Under-19 Limited Overs Matches. He scored 152 runs at 50.67, including a century (109 runs is his top score here). Bhatia has taken 8 wickets here.

Domestic

He has played domestic cricket for 11 years now, making his first-class debut for Tamil Nadu cricket team against Sinhalese Sports Club, at Colombo, in 2000, and he also made his List A debut for the same team against the same team in the same year. Despite that, he was hardly known out of the Indian domestic circuit.

In the 2007/08 Ranji Trophy, he contributed much to Delhi's title win with 512 runs in 7 matches.

The same year, he made his Twenty20 debut for Delhi against Himachal Pradesh in the Inter-State T20 Championship, North Zone game on 3 April 2007, at Delhi where he run out Himachal Pradesh skipper Sandeep Sharma and scored 3 off 7 balls. Himachal Pradesh won by 7 wickets with 1 over spare.^[3]

He first played for Tamil Nadu, but later returned to his original state, the Delhi cricket team. He represented Delhi Daredevils in the inaugural IPL. In 2010 IPL, he took nine wickets to 9 matches, which was a very impressive display.

In 2011, he was bought by the Kolkata Knight Riders, who had decided to entirely revamp their team. Bhatia played a key role as for the first time, KKR finished amongst the top teams after the halfway of the group stage and eventually finished in the top four, which led to their qualification for the 2011 Champions League Twenty20 qualifying rounds. Again, Bhatia performed with both bat and ball, to take KKR to the main round, where he took 2/27 in 3.4 overs and was the best bowler. Nevertheless, Somerset won by 5 wickets in the penultimate ball of the innings.^[4]

References