Priyank Panchal retires from all forms of cricket
Priyank Panchal, a Ranji Trophy winner with Gujarat, has called time on a professional career that spanned over 17 years.The 35-year-old finishes as Gujarat’s second-highest run-getter in first-class cricket, 19 short of Parthiv Patel’s tally of 7011 runs. The 2024-25 Ranji Trophy season was his last, in which he made two centuries. The 148 he made against Kerala in the semi-final turned out to be his last innings.Panchal finishes with 23 centuries, the most by a Gujarat player, during the course of his first-class career that spanned 127 matches in which he made 8856 runs in all. He also featured in 97 List A games and 59 T20s.”Playing for India was the ultimate dream, but I realised that chance may have bypassed me,” Panchal told ESPNcricinfo. “Once that clarity was there, it didn’t make sense carrying on.”I could’ve played for another season or two, but what would I achieve doing that? It wasn’t a sudden call, I’d been thinking about it for a while and felt this was a good time to officially announce.”Having broken through in 2007-08, Panchal played a significant role, along with Parthiv, in transforming Gujarat from a middling team to champions across formats. He eaves with the distinction of being part of the winning squads of all domestic tournaments – Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (2014-15), Vijay Hazare Trophy (2015-16) and Ranji Trophy (2016-17).
Panchal’s career high was his tally of 1310 runs, including a career-best 314 against Punjab, during the course of that title-winning season with Gujarat. At the time, this tally was second-best to VVS Laxman’s tally of 1415 runs, the most in a single Ranji season.That season helped Panchal break into the India A squads, which he captained. He remained in the conversations for the Test squad for a number of years – the closest he got to being part of it was in 2021-22 when he was named as Rohit Sharma’s replacement for the South Africa tour.