Courtesy: BCCI
On Thursday, November 28, Indian pacer Siddarth Kaul announced his retirement from Indian cricket, but at the same time, he has kept his options open in regards to playing in overseas leagues. After being a part of India’s ICC U-19 Cricket World Cup winning team in 2008, captained by Virat Kohli, it took Siddarth Kaul nearly a decade to make his senior debut, which led to him earning three ODI and three T20I appearances.
During his short ODI career, lasting just under three months, Siddarth Kaul wasn’t able to pick up any wickets, but in the T20I format, he ended up taking four wickets, including names like Jos Buttler, Marcus Stoinis, Liam Plunkett, and James Shannon. The majority of Siddarth Kaul’s best moments in his cricket career came in the domestic circuit, where he was one of the most consistent performers for more than a decade or so, apart from his IPL exploits.
Siddarth Kaul played 88 First-class matches in his 17-year career
Siddarth Kaul played a key role in Punjab’s maiden Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy victory in the 2023-24 season after taking 16 wickets in 10 matches, apart from dismissing 19 batters in just six matches in the Vijay Hazare Trophy. In his First-class career, the right-arm fast bowler played 88 matches and took 297 wickets, and in his 111 List A games, he got 199 wickets, while his 145 T20 appearances yielded 182 wickets.
In his interview with ESPNcricinfo, Siddarth Kaul spoke about playing cricket overseas whenever the opportunities arise for him, and remarked, “I feel I still have 3-4 years of cricket left in me, but I wanted to go out on a high, when I was at peak fitness and performing well rather than being asked to go due to fitness or non-performance at some other point.”
Siddarth Kaul also discussed his performances across formats, calling it quite impressive, but still he felt that the time to retire from Indian cricket is nigh. He was quoted as saying, “If you see my graph over the past 9-10 years, I've been performing really well across formats. So I felt this was a good time to go. Hopefully going forward, whatever opportunities arise, like in county cricket [he represented Northamptonshire in three Division 2 Championship games this summer, picking up 13 wickets at 29.84], or Legends League, MLC etc, I'd like to explore them if I get the chance.”
