‘We are not surprised or overwhelmed by his selection – Rajat Patidar’s father reacts to his son’s maiden India call-up

Madhya Pradesh batter Rajat Patidar has gone through a roller-coaster ride in 2022. He went unsold in the IPL 2022 auctions and then was drafted as a replacement for the injured Luvnith Sisodia by RCB.

The 29-year-old had to postpone his marriage in order to play for RCB and it turned out to be a fruitful decision for him as he went on to enjoy a stellar season. He scored an excellent century in the eliminator against the Lucknow Super Giants. It was also the quickest IPL century by an uncapped player and then went on to finish as Madhya Pradesh’s highest run-scorer during their title-winning campaign in the Ranji Trophy.

Patidar also scored 176 and 109* for India A in the unofficial Test series against New Zealand A. All these exploits caught the attention of the selectors and helped him in earning his maiden India call-up for the ODI series against South Africa.

Manohar Patidar, Rajat’s father, recently opened up about his son’s selection and said that he wasn’t surprised as he always knew it was coming.

“He has been playing Ranji cricket for some time now, and we knew he would play ahead of that. We are not surprised or overwhelmed by his selection, it is very normal for us,” Manohar Patidar told Sportskeeda.

“Since he started playing Ranji, I was very sure that he will go way forward (in his career). I was aware of this (selection) from the way he adopted his playing technique in the beginning. He made some good runs, and even if you look at his recent innings for India A, he performed very well,” he added.

Patidar has been in sublime batting form of late and it won’t be surprising if he goes on to make his debut in one of these ODI matches against South Africa.