After being on the bench for the entire IPL 2022 season, 20-year-old fast bowler Rajvardhan Hangargekar got his debut IPL cap for Chennai Super Kings in the first match of IPL 2023, against Gujarat Titans, at the iconic Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad.
With Mukesh Choudhary ruled out of the tournament due to a back injury, CSK decided to give him the bowling duties.
Here are some interesting facts about CSK’s latest rising start Rajvardhan Hangargekar:
Born in Tuljapur, Maharashtra, in 2002, Rajvardhan Hangargekar was part of the India Under-19 team that won the U-19 World Cup in 2022 in the West Indies.
Then, in the IPL 2022 mega-auction, CSK bought him for a big sum of INR 1.5 crore (USD 200,000) – out of the five India Under-19 World Cup winners from the 2022 batch to get maiden IPL contracts in 2022, only one fetched a higher auction price than Hangargekar. However, he remained on the bench throughout the IPL 2022.
Rajvardhan is known to bowl high pace, often clocking the 140 KPH marker as a youngster. The 20-year-old also boasts of powerful muscles and can whack the ball a long way – at the 2022 U-19 World Cup, Hangargekar hit 6 sixes off the 28 balls he faced. At the domestic level, in 5 List-A innings, he’s smashed 3 sixes and 1 six in 3 T20 knocks.
Speaking of his bowling, he has played domestic cricket for Maharashtra in all three formats and has good numbers: he’s taken 13 wickets in 4 First-Class matches; 25 wickets in 13 List-A games with one five-wicket haul, and 3 four-wicket hauls; and 5 wickets in 7 T20 bowling innings.
