Shah Rukh Khan, in his second IPL game against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) on Friday, walked into the crease at 26/5 after 6.2 overs, needing to rescue his team and get them to a respectable total. He saw two more wickets tumble from the non-striker’s end but stayed till the start of the last over.

He scored 47 off 36 balls and was dismissed in the 20th over to Sam Curran, with his team having 101 runs on the board. PBKS ended with a total of 106 for the loss of eight wickets in 20 overs.

Namesake to a Bollywood icon, the right-hand batsman from Tamil Nadu got instant recognition upon being picked up by Punjab Kings in the auctions of IPL 2021 largely from Punjab Kings owner Preity Zinta’s exclamatory reaction, after the franchise purchased Khan, in the form of “We’ve got Shahrukh!”.

His road to recognition, however, was not smooth at all. The youngster, despite showcasing his talent in the early stages of his career for Tamil Nadu, was not chosen for the U-19 World Cup in 2016. This came in spite of Khan scoring a total of 624 runs and picking up 18 wickets in the Cooch Behar Trophy in the run-up to the grand stage.

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Interestingly, this further propelled him rather than holding the batsman back, as Khan was included in the Tamil Nadu Vijay Hazare Trophy squad in the same year, and furthermore, a Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL) debut a few weeks later, representing the Trichy franchise.

In 2018, he scored a total of 325 runs from nine games in the tournament, this time representing the Kovai Kings, resulting in a first-class debut for Tamil Nadu later on in the same year, which saw his time defeat Kerala by 151 runs.

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The following years saw Khan, a batsman who could also bowl off-spin, gain trials under IPL sides like Mumbai Indians for his consistent performance with the state’s side. His big break into IPL came finally in 2021, as Punjab Kings picked him up for a substantial Rs 5.25 crore price tag.