Aakash Chopra

Chopra made his Test debut in Ahmedabad against New Zealand in late 2003 as India sought to find an opening partner for his Delhi teammate Virender Sehwag.[1] Chopra's international career started well, scoring two half-centuries against New Zealand during 2003–04 in the second Test in Mohali. On the 2003–04 tour to Australia, he featured in many solid partnerships with Virender Sehwag, including two century opening partnerships in Melbourne and Sydney. Chopra's work in seeing off the new ball saw him credited with the large scores that India accumulated in that series when middle-order batsmen Rahul Dravid, V. V. S. Laxman, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly regularly compiled large centuries.[1]

On the subsequent tour to Pakistan, he compiled another century stand with Virender Sehwag as India posted more than 600 runs in the first innings to set up a heavy innings defeat of arch-rivals Pakistan in the first Test in Multan. However, in the second Test, the Indian batsmen failed in a losing effort, apart from a century from Yuvraj Singh, who played in place of the injured captain Sourav Ganguly.[5] When Ganguly returned for the final Test, Chopra was axed and Yuvraj was retained.

Chopra was reintroduced as Sehwag's partner in the 2004 Border-Gavaskar Trophy after Tendulkar was injured for the First Test in Bangalore. However, a heavy loss saw Chopra axed for the following match in Chennai upon Tendulkar's return, with Yuvraj elevated to opening the innings. Yuvraj also struggled, and Chopra was recalled for the Third Test in Nagpur. However, a double failure by Chopra, as Australia won a series in India for the first time in 35 years, saw him drop for the last time, after his career average gradually decreased, however, from 46.25 to only 23. Chopra was replaced by Delhi teammate Gautam Gambhir, and was overtaken by Gambhir and Wasim Jaffer in the race to partner Sehwag on the Test side. Due to his slow scoring rate, he was not considered for One Day Internationals.

He played for Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL 2008, IPL 2009, but was dropped eventually as he was deemed too slow for fast-paced T-20 cricket.

In IPL 2011 he had been signed by Rajasthan Royals, in that season he scored just 53 runs with a poor average of 8.83 in 6 innings. After that, he did not get a chance to play even a single match in 2 years. Eventually, he announced his retirement from all forms of cricket in 2015.[6]

In September 2008, Aakash played for Delhi in the Nissar Trophy against SNGPL (winners of Quaid-i-Azam Trophy from Pakistan) and scored 4 and 197 for Delhi.[7] The match was drawn but SNGPL won the trophy on first-innings lead.[8] After representing Delhi for a long time, Chopra joined Rajasthan as a guest player in Ranji Plate division.[9] He helped Rajasthan to become the first Plate division team to win the Ranji Trophy followed by another Ranji trophy win in 2010–2011 season. He has won three Ranji titles in total—one with Delhi and two with Rajasthan. He's one of the few Indian cricketers who have scored over 8,000 First-Class runs.