India Batter Saurabh Tiwary Announces Retirement From Professional Cricket

India batter Saurabh Tiwary has announced his retirement from professional cricket and will feature in his final match for Jharkhand against Jamshedpur on February 15 in the Ranji Trophy. Tiwary started playing cricket at the age of 11, in the 2006-07 Ranji season Tiwari made his first-class debut as a teenager. He went on to win the Under-19 World Cup under the leadership of Virat Kohli in Malaysia in 2008. He continued to soar high with his performances for Mumbai Indians in 2010. He went on to score 419 runs which allowed him to earn a call-up for the India team for the Asian Cup. But he had to wait till October 2010 to make his international debut.

The left-handed batter went on to play three ODIs for the Men in Blue, amassed 49 runs and stayed unbeaten in the two of them.

Tiwary's true potential came out in domestic cricket where he played 115 games in a career that lasted for 17 years.

"It's a little tough to bid farewell to this journey that I had started before my schooling. But I'm also sure that this is the right time for this. I feel that if you're not in the national team and IPL, it's better to vacate a spot in the state side for a youngster. Youngsters are getting a lot of chances in our Test team so I'm making this decision," Tiwary said on Monday at a press conference as quoted from ESPNcricinfo.

"It's not like I've decided this only on the basis of my performances. You can see my record in Ranji and in the last domestic season. It's always asked what I'm going to do next and for now I only know that cricket is the only thing I know so I'm going to be connected to the game. I got an offer from politics too but I haven't thought about that," Tiwary added.

He is Jharkhand's leading run scorer with 8030 runs