The struggling, yet an impressive career of Ambati Rayudu

Ambati Rayudu is in the middle of a purple patch where he has been able to decimate bowlers with his vicious stroke-play. The Guntur-born cricketer is currently playing for the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the eleventh edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) and is currently their leading run-scorers in the cash-rich tournament with 535 runs in 12 matches.

Recently, he also notched his maiden century in the league against the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in Pune. He was previously called up in India’s ODI squad for their tour of England in June. The 32-year is set to make a comeback to the national setup after a gap of two years. He has been a class act, but, he hasn’t been able to cement his place in Indian colours.

“Very, very special” Rayudu’s coach on his student

However, there were no doubts about his talent ever since his younger days. The late Vijay Paul, Rayudu’s first coach, had previously hailed the potential of the batsman and identified the same during his early years of cricket. “From the early days, I always believed that this boy is very, very special,” Paul was quoted as saying in Sportstar.

Rayudu used to tread a competitive and animated approach on the cricket pitch, which landed him in trouble on several occasions. An example is an incident during a 2015 Ranji Trophy match between Hyderabad and Andhra Pradesh. Rayudu got himself tangled into an undesired brawl with Arjun Yadav, the Hyderabad batsman and also his former teammate.

Meanwhile, Yadav also opened up on the incident and mentioned that he moved on afterwards and their relationship hasn’t been harmed by the incident. “What happened was in the past. We were young then and the circumstances different. We have to move on. There is no animosity at all between us,” Yadav said earlier.

Even Rayudu seemed to have learned a lesson from the occurring. “That is the past; let us look ahead,” Rayudu mentioned. Venkatpathy Raju also reminisced the first instances when he saw the batsman. We very rarely come across such immensely talented cricketers in Indian cricket. There is an old world charm about his batting, and he can play strokes on either side of the wicket with ease,” Raju remarked.

Here is CSK’s full squad

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