From elbow injury to epic comeback: Gaikwad's masterclass in patience and power

It's been close to five months since an elbow injury at the IPL 2025 kept Ruturaj Gaikwad away from top-flight cricket. He had a stint at the pre-season Buchi Babu tournament but playing a first-class game - a Duleep Trophy semi-final, no less - after a substantial gap, he would have liked to ease into the red-ball grind.

Instead, Gaikwad found himself walking in at 10 for 2, only 19 balls into the semi-final. West Zone lost both openers under cloudy skies and the Central Zone bowlers Khaleel Ahmed and Deepak Chahar extracted plenty of movement. Gaikwad had seen Yashasvi Jaiswal trapped lbw to a Khaleel nip-backer and Harvik Desai caught at first slip, courtesy of a Chahar outswinger.

Gaikwad knew counterattacking could be catastrophic, so he took the defensive route. He was beaten multiple times and had a couple of lbw shouts turned down. But he remained unmoved. As the weather cleared up and the sun started beating down, the surface at Ground B of BCCI's Centre of Excellence played fewer tricks. By this time, Gaikwad had also started moving better. He was leaving the ball well, getting the long defensive strides in.

Once Khaleel and Chahar finished their first spells, Gaikwad became proactive against the spinners and the third fast bowler, Yash Thakur. He guided offspinner Saransh Jain's first ball past slip and then swept him to the left of deep square leg. In Jain's next over, he struck him for two successive fours, and in no time caught up with his partner Aaryan Desai.

Even when Aaryan fell, Gaikwad continued to shift gears, reaching his half-century before lunch, taking West Zone to safety.

"I thought it was a good challenge to be part of," Gaikwad said on countering the fast bowlers. "They were three really good fast bowlers with great skill set and to be able to face them, to be able to score runs against them would be a great challenge. That is what I thought and obviously, I stuck to it and [I am] really happy that it came off."

With the conditions for batting improving after lunch, Gaikwad opened up his shoulders even as West Zone lost Shreyas Iyer and Shams Mulani cheaply. A hallmark of Gaikwad's knock was his foot movement against the spinners. On multiple occasions, he threw them off their lengths by going down the track and driving through covers and then going right back and guiding them late past slip.

It didn't take Gaikwad long to record his eighth first-class century, getting there with a push to mid-off off Harsh Dubey. And once he got to the landmark, he notched up a gear, particularly against the quicks. In the first over after tea, Gaikwad hit three fours off Thakur, which included two crisp straight drives. Soon after, he went after his Chennai Super Kings (CSK) team-mate, Khaleel. Taking advantage of Khaleel's around-the-wicket angle, he first thrashed him for two consecutive fours, one through cover and the other through deep third. Then there was a delightful square cut followed by an upper-cut that went for six before he ended the over with an imperious cover drive.

Gaikwad's century was a masterclass on how to pace an innings. He took 72 balls to reach his fifty, 59 to go from 51 to 100, and just 47 balls to move from 101 to 150. By the time Gaikwad fell for 184 off 206 balls, beaten in flight by Jain and stumped, he had put West Zone in a position of strength.

Despite playing first-class cricket after a gap, Gaikwad said that he didn't have any pre-conceived goal in mind at the start of his innings: "It was just about following the process, whatever it is. Red ball needs a lot of patience, lot of process to be followed and it was just about getting into that rhythm. And I did it for almost a month and a half, and obviously, Buchi Babu as well and then it happened here as well."

Gaikwad fractured his elbow after being struck by a Tushar Deshpande delivery during IPL 2025. As a result, he missed a chunk of the IPL and India A's tour to England in May-June. He later also pulled out of a County deal with Yorkshire due to a "personal issue at home".

The 28-year-old agreed that it wasn't ideal sitting on the sidelines, but said there was a silver lining with him getting to spend more time with family and time to prepare for the domestic season.

"There are some things which you cannot really control, and I think it was a very fluke injury and nothing anyone could do about it," Gaikwad said. "I just had a good family time, enjoyed my time at home, and then obviously [now I am] trying to get into the rhythm, get into the routines, do the small things. I really loved the process throughout the time I was at home and then coming here as well [for rehab].

"I got good time to prepare, especially after not playing the India A series. And then after coming back, I decided to work on red ball, give it some time and obviously still working on it. Still there is a long way to go."