Robin Uthappa

As a batter Robin Uthappa was attractive to watch, hard-hitting, equipped with every shot in the book, and unafraid to hit the ball in the air - arguably to the point where tempering his strokeplay became a problem and kept him out of the Indian team for long periods.

Uthappa first caught the eye with a brilliant 66 in a loss for India B against India A in the Challenger Trophy in Mumbai in 2005, against an attack that included Zaheer Khan, Murali Kartik and RP Singh. In the following year's tournament, in Mohali, he cracked a match-winning 93-ball hundred for India B. The reward was a place in the senior India side in the final ODI of the home series against England early in 2006, and he capitalised with a well-paced 86. One of his finest performances came a year and a half later, when he produced a nerveless unbeaten 47 off 33 balls to help India seal a rousing win against England again at The Oval.

Uthappa was a part of the Indian squad that won the World T20 in 2007, but he had a poor year in international cricket in 2008, averaging under 20 in 14 matches. That resulted in him being dropped from the Indian team, and he also had a few fairly ordinary seasons in domestic cricket. He made a comeback in 2013-14, when his side, Karnataka, won the Ranji Trophy, Irani Cup and Vijay Hazare Trophy. Uthappa followed that up with an outstanding IPL in 2014, in which he scored 40 or more in ten successive innings for title winners Kolkata Knight Riders, and was the leading run-scorer of the tournament. The reward was a place in the Indian team for the tour to Bangladesh for the ODI series in 2014, where he made a fifty in a series of rain-interrupted matches.

He was left out of the national side again, but produced his best domestic season, with over 1100 runs at an average of above 50 in 2014-15, when Karnataka became the first domestic team to repeat their title-winning triple of the previous season. He played another handful of white-ball games for India in 2015, which proved to be his last international appearances.

Uthappa remained a force for KKR through to 2019, and played 86 games in all for them, making just under 2500 runs at a strike rate of 136. He then moved to Rajasthan Royals for a season and ended his career at Chennai Super Kings in 2022, announcing he was retiring from all Indian and international cricket later that year.