Former Indian Cricketer Suresh Raina has received an honorary doctorate from the VELS University campus, Pallavaram-Tamil Nadu as a part of the 12th Annual Convocation ceremony on August fifth.
Suresh Raina was born in Muradnagar, Uttar Pradesh on November 27, 1986, into a Kashmiri Pandit family. He is considered one of the greatest Left-handed Middle-order batsmen in the game of cricket.
At a very young age, his skills were unmatched by any other player during that period where he scored two double-hundreds taking him to the Indian Junior team. He was the second-youngest player to be the captain of India. He is also the first Indian to score centuries in all three formats of the game (T2O, Test, and ODI). Raina represented India in the 2011 world cup, where the squad managed to bring back the cup home after 28 long years.
Raina is popularly known as “Chinna Thala” among the cricket fans, he was given this name for the success he contributed to the Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League (IPL). He is the first ever person to score 5000 runs in the IPL and also holds the record for most number of catches (107) taken in the IPL. He is also the highest run scorer in the Champions League T20 history with 842 runs.
The Chinna Thala is considered the first player to score 6000 as well as 8000 runs in his T20 career. People consider him the Mr.IPL for his amazing performance in all the departments like batting, bowling, and fielding.
Raina also released his autobiography, “Believe-What life and cricket taught me”. His autobiography is short and easy to read with numerous engaging stories from every phase of his life, those who watched him play for team India or IPL will enjoy this book that merges stories from the cricketers’ personal life and professional life.
Raina even mentioned in his autobiography that Dhoni is known as Thala (Chief) and Chinna Thala (Deputy Chief).
On 15th August 2020, Suresh Raina announced his retirement from international cricket, it’s the same day that MS Dhoni retired from all formats of International cricket. He considers MS Dhoni as an important person in his life.
