(Cricket News) Saurabh Tiwary, who started playing cricket at the age of eleven, has announced his retirement from professional cricket. The 34-year-old will play his final match for Jharkhand as they wrap up their Ranji Trophy campaign on February 15 in Jamshedpur.
Tiwary made his first-class debut in the 2006–07 Ranji Trophy season while still a teenager. In 2008, he won the Under-19 World Cup as a member of the team captained by Virat Kohli in Malaysia.
Tiwary’s career took another turn for the better. He was called up by India for the Asia Cup in June after hitting 419 runs for the Mumbai Indians and 34 fifties for Jharkhand in 2010, and he played three One-Day Internationals (ODIs) in which he scored 49 runs and went undefeated in two of them.
In domestic cricket, however, Tiwary was far more prolific, playing 115 first-class matches over the course of 17 years, amassing 8030 runs in 189 innings at an average of 47.51, including 22 hundreds and 34 fifties.
“I am making this decision because I feel that if you are not in the national team and IPL, it is better to vacate a spot in the state side for a youngster. Youngsters are getting a lot of chances in our Test team, so I am making this decision,” Tiwary said on Monday at a press conference at the Keenan Stadium in Jamshedpur. “It is a little tough to bid farewell to this journey that I had started before my schooling,” Tiwary added.
After helping Mumbai reach their first IPL final, Tiwary was acquired by Royal Challengers Bangalore for USD 1.6 million in 2011, but he was unable to repeat the same level of success in his three years with the new team.
In 2014, he was sidelined by a shoulder injury, and he went on to play for Rising Pune Supergiant and Delhi Daredevils (now Delhi Capitals) for a year each before returning to Mumbai in 2021 at the age of 31, indicating that his left-handedness and his power game were valued in the shortest format.
Like his first-class career, Tiwary’s List A career began in 2006 and he finished with an IPL tally of 1494 runs at an average of 28.73 and a strike rate of 120. Overall, he has 3454 T20 runs with 16 fifties at an average of 29.02 and a strike rate of 122.17.
He captained his state 88 times across formats, winning 36, losing 33, and drawing 19. He also led East Zone seven times (six in the 50-over Deodhar Trophy in 2023 and one in the four-day Duleep Trophy in 2010).
