Suresh Raina was one of the stars of Indian white-ball teams throughout the early 2010s. He was a consistent performer in the middle order, a gun fielder and a handy off-spinner. T20 format was where he really found his mojo and though he has not featured in an Indian T20I side for over two years, he will easily make it to an all-time Indian T20 eleven. Such has been his impact.
IPL is where he showed to the world his skills as a batsman. Batting at number 3 for the Chennai Super Kings, he helped them win many matches. His numbers are second to none in the IPL and we present a series of facts that prove that Suresh Raina is indeed the GOAT of the IPL.
An epitome of consistency: While it is difficult to score 400 runs in one season of the IPL given the level of cricket on offer, Suresh Raina has set a different benchmark for consistency. He is the only player to score 400 runs in 7 IPL seasons and what’s even more staggering is that these runs came in 7 consecutive seasons. So he hardly ever failed.
The master of ‘firsts’: Suresh Raina is the first player to reach 2000, 3000, and 4000 runs in the IPL. Virat Kohli just pipped him for the 5,000 run-mark otherwise he was close to achieving that record too. He has been ahead of everybody in the run-scoring charts of the IPL.
A Clean-striker of the ball: The IPL has seen some fierce strikers of the ball like MS Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Yusuf Pathan. Yet, Suresh Raina beat them all to become the first Indian and second overall to hit 100 sixes in the IPL. He has also managed to hit a total of 493 fours in the IPL and he sits at the second spot in this list.
King of T20 centuries: Suresh Raina became the first Indian to score a T20I hundred in 2010. While he has hit a hundred in the Indian jersey, he has hit hundreds in the yellow jersey too. He is the only Indian to score a century in CLT20, IPL, and T20I.
Regular Appearances: Suresh Raina has the highest number of consecutive appearances for a particular team in the IPL and in the tournament in general too, In fact, the first match that he missed in the IPL was in 2016 when he was supposed to get wedded. This is indicative of his sheer fitness and passion to play.
The prime match-winner: Suresh Raina is the only player to get at least one man of the match award every season of the IPL, to get at least 350 runs in every season and score at least one fifty in every season. No one else has done all these three things across all seasons.
Liking for the oppositions: Suresh Raina has scored over 800 runs against KKR, MI, and DC. He is the only player to score over 800 runs against three different teams. Moreover, he is the only player to score the fifties against 10 different oppositions in the IPL. Clearly, he has made a mark against everybody.
Leading run-scorer of the IPL: It is imperative to round this list off with the most crucial stat. Raina was the leading run-scorer of the IPL forever really. In the 2019 season, Virat Kolhi went ahead of him but still, it’s a cat and mouse game between the two of them. One keeps surpassing the other.
