Vijay Shankar, the seam-bowling allrounder who played 21 white-ball games for
India across 2018 and 2019, has retired from domestic cricket and the IPL. This move will allow the 35-year-old to play in overseas franchise leagues.
Vijay Shankar scored 223 ODI runs in 12 games at an average of 31.85 and a strike rate of 90.65, and 101 T20I runs in nine matches at 25.25 and 138.35. He played most of his domestic cricket for Tamil Nadu, captaining them to title wins in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, Deodhar Trophy and Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy before moving to Tripura ahead of the 2025-26 season. He ended his domestic career with a bang, scoring an unbeaten, Player-of-the-Match-winning 151* in a Ranji Trophy
victory over Gujarat in February.
In all, Vijay Shankar made 4253 runs in first-class cricket at an average of 46.73, 2790 List A runs at 34.87, and 2583 T20 runs at an average of 26.09 and a strike rate of 128.37. He also took 154 wickets in 348 games across formats.
He went unsold at the most recent IPL auction in December, after registering as an uncapped player, with more than five years having elapsed since his last international appearance. He played 78 IPL games from 2014 to 2025, representing Chennai Super Kings (across two stints), Sunrisers Hyderabad (two stints), Delhi Capitals and Gujarat Titans.
In international cricket, Vijay Shankar came into prominence in the lead-up to the 2019 World Cup as a candidate for the No. 4 role that had India were then struggling to fill. He impressed the selectors with his utility as a technically correct middle-order batter who could bowl medium-pace and offer a sixth bowling option in English conditions, and eventually pipped the specialist batter Ambati Rayudu to a spot in India’s World Cup squad.
MSK Prasad, who was then chairman of selectors, said Vijay Shankar had been preferred over Rayudu because he brought “three dimensions” to the side.
Rayudu responded by tweeting this: “Just ordered a new set of 3d glasses to watch the World Cup.”
As it turned out, Vijay Shankar’s World Cup was short-lived. He played three matches and enjoyed one of his career highlights during the
victory over Pakistan at Old Trafford, taking two wickets including one off his very first ball in World Cup cricket, but was
ruled out midway through the tournament with a broken toe sustained while facing a Jasprit Bumrah yorker in the nets.
Vijay Shankar made a reference to the World Cup selection controversy in his retirement post on Instagram, signing off as “Your 3D cricketer”.
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