Suresh Raina made his 300th T20 appearance even more special by becoming the only Indian cricketer to score 8000 runs in the shortest format of the game. Raina reached the milestone in Uttar Pradesh’s Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 trophy match against Puducherry in Palam B at New Delhi on Monday.
Raina needed 11 runs to reach 8000 T20 runs and he ended up scoring 12 in UP’s 77-run win over Puducherry. Priyam Garg was the top-scorer for UP with a 30-ball 54-run innings.
Raina, who also holds the record for most runs in IPL, became the sixth batsman overall to achieve the feat. West Indies superstar Chris Gayle leads the chart with 12,298 runs in 269 matches while former New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum is second on the list with 9922 runs from 370 matches. Kieron Pollard (8838), Shoaib Malik (8603), and David Warner (8111) are the other players in the top five run-scorers list in T20 cricket.
Raina is closely followed by Indian captain Virat Kohli, who has 7833 runs in 251 T20s.
Raina also became the second Indian cricketer after MS Dhoni to play 300 T20s. Dhoni has played 301 T20s so far. Dhoni and Raina and followed by India’s limited overs vice-captain Rohit Sharma who has played 299 T20s.
Raina has not been able to set the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy on fire. He did score a match-winning half-century against Hyderabad on a sluggish wicket but apart from that, he has very little to show. Raina has only managed to score 70 runs in four appearances for UP. Despite Raina’s below-par showing, UP are on top of the Group E table with three wins from four matches.
Raina, who last played for India in England last year, will turn up for CSK in IPL 2019.