Ambati Thirupathi Rayudu, a former cricket player from India, was born on September 23, 1985. Between 2013 and 2019, he participated in 61 limited overs games for the Indian national cricket team. He is a middle-order batsman who bats right-handed and can also bowl off breaks with a right arm. He was a player for the Texas Super Kings in Major League Cricket, the Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League (IPL), and Hyderabad in domestic cricket. On December 28, 2023, Ambati Rayudu joined the YSRCP political party in Amravati, where YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, was present.
| Full Name | Ambati Thirupathi Rayudu |
| Born | 23 September 1985 (age 38) Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, India |
| Nickname | Baahubali, ATR |
| Height | 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m) |
| Batting | Right-handed |
| Relations | Rohit Rayudu (cousin) |
| Bowling | Right-arm off-spin |
| Spouse | Chennupalli Vidya (m. 2009) |
At the age of sixteen, Rayudu started his first-class career with Hyderabad in 2002. The next year, he was representing India A. At the 2004 ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup, he captained the India Under-19 team and was anticipated to make the senior squad. He was passed over for the national team selection due to disagreements with players and the state organization, which was followed by his joining the “rebel” Indian Cricket League. 2009 saw him return to domestic cricket by signing off on his ICL contract and accepting the BCCI’s offer of amnesty. He was first included in the Indian squad in 2012 following impressive results for Baroda in domestic cricket and the Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League. In July 2013, he eventually made his debut abroad.
Rayudu turned down an invitation to join the Icelandic cricket team after being left out of the Indian side for the 2019 ICC World Cup. He declared his retirement from all international cricket competitions on July 2, 2019.
He declared his retirement from the IPL on May 28, 2023. Rayudu declared his retirement from Indian cricket on May 29, 2023. Rayudu was soon after added to the Texas Super Kings roster for the first season of Major League Cricket in June 2023. He is playing in a franchise league for the first time outside of India.
Early life
On September 23, 1985, Rayudu was born in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, India, into the Kapu family. Sambasiva Rao, his father, was employed at the department of archives. In an interview, Rayudu stated that when he was in the third grade, his father enrolled him in a coaching camp and encouraged him to take up cricket. In 1992, Rayudu’s father brought him to the cricket academy of former cricket player Vijay Paul from Hyderabad. According to Paul, “Rayudu’s father used to ferry him around on his scooter to the cricket camps and various matches.” “Rao used to stand about 50 meters away and watch Rayudu practice day in and day out,” stated Abdul Azeem.
Career
In the late 1990s, Rayudu started out for Hyderabad youth teams, competing at the Under-16 and Under-19 levels. At the 2000 ACC Under-15 Trophy, he played for the India Under-15s. He won man of the match against Pakistan and emerged as the tournament’s top run scorer. Due to his prolific run-scoring in the age group levels, he was called up to the Hyderabad senior team. At the age of sixteen, he played his first-class debut for Hyderabad during the 2001–02 Ranji Trophy in January of 2002. In that game, his lone first-class debut of the season, batting at 4, he scored 33.
He was named captain of the India Under-17 team later that year, and he played for the India Under-19 team as well. During the India Under-19 visit of In his first Under-19 game against England, Rayudu opened the batting and amassed 291 runs in three innings, good for the lead in the series that India won 3-0. His finest performance of the series occurred in the third one-day international (ODI), when he hit a brilliant 177 off 169 balls to lead his team from a dangerous 137 for 6 to the target of 304.
Rayudu played in every Ranji Trophy match for Hyderabad in 2002–03, amassing 698 runs at an average of 69.80 to place third among all runners-up. Playing in just his third Ranji match of the competition, Rayudu “pressed his claims for an India cap” by scoring 210 and 159 not out against Andhra in the same match. In the same game, he became the youngest player in Ranji Trophy history to achieve a double century and a century.
Rayudu performed on a number of India A’s trips in the West Indies and England in 2003. Experts predicted that he is “sure to play for India in the near future” after he averaged 87 on the England tour. The 17-year-old was described by ESPNcricinfo as: “Touted as the next big hope for Indian middle-order batting, Rayudu has had the critics gushing about his scintillating strokeplay and his composure under pressure.” He did, however, have a miserable time playing for India Seniors at the Challenger Trophy in September 2003, as they took advantage of his alleged weakness against the short ball. After failing to impress in the Emerging Players Tournament, he played four matches with an average of above 54 in the ensuing Ranji season. He was captured. With an undefeated fifty in the championship match, the India Under-19 team won the Asia Under-19 tournament.
At the 2004 ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup in Bangladesh, Rayudu led the Indian squad to a semifinal finish. He had a tournament batting average of 24.83 and was suspended for the semifinal match against Pakistan due to a prior match infraction of the ICC Code of Conduct. Later that year in Nairobi, he scored an undefeated century for India A against Kenya. In the 2004–05 Ranji Trophy, he averaged just 11.93 from 7 matches, while in the Ranji One-Day Trophy, he hit 3 fifties in 4 matches.
Decline, ICL and Return
Rayudu moved to Andhra for the 2005–06 season as a result of disagreements with Rajesh Yadav, the coach of Hyderabad at the time. That season, he averaged 35 in the Ranji Trophy and gained notoriety when Hyderabad player Arjun Yadav hit him with stumps following Yadav’s dismissal during the Andhra-Hyderabad game. The next season, Rayudu returned to Hyderabad when Vivek Jaisimha became the team’s new coach. That season, Rayudu was limited to playing in just three Ranji games due to a knee ailment that prevented him from playing. He scored 62 and 110 not out against Rajasthan in one of the three games. After his injury healed, he averaged 21 in the Ranji One-Day Trophy during 2006–07.
The “rebel” Indian Cricket League (ICL) was founded in the middle of 2007. Players and officials affiliated with the Indian Cricket League (ICL) would not be allowed to play domestic cricket in India, according to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), which was against the league. It was claimed in August 2007 that Hyderabadi players Rayudu and six others had already committed to the ICL. The ICL was Rayudu’s choice, and he defended it in an interview from November 2007 saying, “I didn’t want to play ten years of domestic cricket and feel that I have not played any international-quality opposition.” It’s an opportunity “to play against quality opposition for three years and it will also be televised on TV,” he continued. Hopefully, others will notice me acting out. Additionally, I wish to perform for my own gratification. between the ICL, he played for Hyderabad Heroes and ICL India between 2007 and 2008.
Following Hyderabad’s relegation to the Ranji Trophy Plate Division prior to the 2010–11 season, Rayudu made the decision to play for Baroda, with Hyderabad coach Venkatapathy Raju claiming that the move was “done in bad taste. Baroda finished runners-up in the Ranji Trophy that season, but Rayudu was the team’s top run scorer with 566 runs in 9 matches at an average of 56.60, including an undefeated double hundred and three half-centuries. He averaged 48.75 at the 2011–12 Ranji Trophy, including two hundreds. He was then called up to the India A team for their tour of New Zealand, where he made 105 runs at Lincoln without conceding a wicket against New Zealand A. Additionally, he was one of the 30 probables for the 2012 ICC World Twenty20, but he was not selected.
Indian Team
Rayudu was chosen by the newly established selection panel, which was led by Sandeep Patil, a former ICL member, to replace the injured Manoj Tiwary for the T20I series against England in December 2012. Nevertheless, in neither of the two games did Rayudu make the starting eleven. Rayudu scored 666 runs at an average of 60.54 with a hundred and seven fifty-scores during the 2012–13 Ranji Trophy season. In the 2013 Irani Cup match against Mumbai, he participated for the Rest of India and scored 51 and 156. In the Deodhar Trophy final of 2012–13, he led all scorers with an innings of 78 that enabled West Zone to overcome North Zone and reach the target of 290.
Rayudu was selected to replace Mahendra Singh Dhoni during the July 2013 West Indies tri-series after the latter was sidelined by injury. However, Rayudu did not play in any of the games. Later that month, Rayudu was added to an Indian second string squad for the trip to Zimbabwe. On July 24, 2013, he made his debut for his country in the opening ODI of the series, and he was instrumental in the Indian victory. Along with his skipper, Virat Kohli, who scored a century, he made 63* to help India win. On his ODI debut, he became the 12th batsman from India to reach a half-century.
Despite making just two appearances in the playing eleven during the four series, Rayudu remained a member of India’s ODI squads as a reserve batsman in the home series against Australia in October 2013 and the West Indies in November 2013, as well as on tours to South Africa in December 2013 and New Zealand in January 2014. He participated in every Asia Cup game in 2014 and scored 58 points against Pakistan. He had trouble on the Bangladesh three-match ODI visit, scoring two runs in the single digits.
In July 2014, Rayudu was selected for the England tour in both the ODI and T20I squads. at the third One-Day International (ODI) at Nottingham, he took his first wicket in an ODI, off England captain Alastair Cook, and top-scored with 64 runs not out to lead India to a six-wicket victory. at the fifth ODI at Leeds, he backed it up with a 53. In the October 2014 home ODI series against the West Indies, he averaged 28.50. In the subsequent series against Sri Lanka, Rayudu made his first-ever ODI century by leading India to the target of 275 in the second ODI at Ahmedabad with an unbeaten 121. He formed more than 100 partnerships with Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli during the game, and he secured his first the knock’s man of the match award. He scored fifty-nine in the fifth One-Day International at Ranchi, which enabled another successful run chase and a 5-1 rout of Sri Lanka.
Rayudu was chosen for India’s 15-man squad for the 2015 Cricket World Cup, which went to the semifinals, despite not playing in any of the tournament’s matches. Rayudu averaged 19.33 in the tri-series against Australia and England. During the June 2015 Bangladesh tour, he participated in two ODIs and averaged 22. Rayudu earned man of the match after making an undefeated 124 in the first ODI in Harare during the ensuing tour of Zimbabwe. Before sustaining an injury that kept him out of the tour, he scored 41 in the following game. Rayudu was named series MVP as India went on to win the series 3-0.
After spending four years with the Chennai Super Kings, Rayudu was acquired by them once more in the 2022 Indian Premier League for ₹6.75 crores. Before the 2023 IPL final, on May 28, 2023, Rayudu declared that it would be his last IPL match.[60] But Rayudu declared his retirement from all forms of Indian cricket on May 29, 2023.
Personal Life
Rayudu married Chennupalli Vidya, a college friend, on 14 February 2009. They have two children. Chennupalli and Ambati studied in the same college. She saw Ambati during her first year of graduation. Over the course of time, their friendship turned into love during college days. After being together for a long time, Chennupalli and Ambati Rayudu tied the knot on February 14, 2009. They are happily married for over 13 years now and currently live in Hyderabad.
Chennupalli and Ambati Rayudu have a daughter who was born in July 2020, named Viviya. Ambati took to Instagram to share the heartwarming news with the world. He posted a selfie with his wife and the newborn and captioned it: “Truly blessed…”
Controversies
Throughout his career, Rayudu has had run-ins with both officials and players. In 2005, while representing Andhra in the Ranji Trophy, he got into a brawl with Arjun Yadav of Hyderabad, and Yadav struck him with a stump. After a game in the 2012 Indian Premier League, Rayudu used profanity and abuse against Harshal Patel, an opposition player, for which he was fined 100% of his match fee. He was observed cursing the umpire in 2014 following his dismissal during an India A match while on tour in Australia. He got into an on-field altercation with Mumbai Indians colleague Harbhajan Singh during an IPL 2016 match. 2018 saw Rayudu’s two-match ban by the BCCI following his tense altercation with the umpires in a Karnataka vs. Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy match.
Ex-cricketer Ambati Rayudu joins Jagan Mohan Reddy’s party
Ambati Rayudu retired from cricket in 2023 after the Indian Premier League. Former Indian cricketer Ambati Rayudu on Thursday joined politics. He joined Andhra Pradesh’s ruling party, Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP), in the presence of chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy in Vijayawada. Deputy CM Narayan Swamy and YSRCP MP Peddireddy Mithun Reddy also attended the event .Former Indian cricketer Ambati Rayudu on Thursday joined politics. He joined Andhra Pradesh’s ruling party, Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP), in the presence of chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy in Vijayawada. Deputy CM Narayan Swamy and YSRCP MP Peddireddy Mithun Reddy also attended the event
.
Rayudu retired from cricket in 2023 after the Indian Premier League. A native of Andhra Pradesh, he has represented the state in domestic cricket. He also played for Team India.He announced his decision to join politics in June. The 37-year-old cricketer toured his native Guntur district after May, to understand the issues confronting the people at the grassroots level.
Leave a Reply