K.S. Bharat, a wicketkeeper-batsman from the city, has been picked up by Royal Challengers Bangalore for this year’s IPL season. He was picked up at the auction held on Thursday.
Bharat, who was earlier selected by Delhi Daredevils, will now play for RCB, led by Indian skipper Virat Kohli.
Bharat has scored 720 runs from 48 matches in the T20 format.
The 28-year-old cricketer was earlier selected by the BCCI for the historic Pink Ball Test Match played between India and Bangladesh in 2019.
Bharat was the first cricketer from Vizag to be selected for the Test squad. The only other cricketer to make it big from Vizag earlier was Y. Venugopla Rao, who only played One-Day Internationals.
The cricketer has scored a lot of runs in domestic cricket while playing for Andhra. He is also the first wicketkeeper-batsman to score a triple century in a Ranji Trophy match.
Born in 1993, Bharat did his schooling from St. Aloysius and later obtained his degree from Dr. Lankapalli Bullayya College.
The only other cricketer from Andhra, apart from Ambati Rayudu and Bharat, to get picked up for this year’s IPL was fast bowler Harishankar Reddy. He was picked up by Chennai Super Kings and will be playing alongside Rayudu under M.S. Dhoni’s captaincy.
Congratulating the cricketers and appreciating their consistent performance, Y. Venugopal Rao, Director-Cricket Operations of ACA, said that ACA president P. Sarath Chandra Reddy had a strong commitment to see that more players from Andhra get picked up by Team India and even in IPL.
