India cricketer Ruturaj Gaikwad will not be joining Yorkshire for the remainder of the County Championship season, the club confirmed in a brief statement. The Chennai Super Kings and Maharashtra captain had previously agreed to a five-match deal, starting with Yorkshire's upcoming clash against the reigning champions, Surrey, at Scarborough on July 22. However, due to personal reasons, Gaikwad has pulled out of the tournament.
The 28-year-old had played only five games in the IPL 2025 before being ruled out with an elbow injury. Since then, he recovered well and was part of the India A squad that played a couple of games against England Lions before India’s tour of England began. In the meantime, Surrey head coach Anthony McGrath expressed his disappointment with Gaikwad’s withdrawal and added that the team will look for replacements, but he wasn’t sure if they have enough time to find one.
“Unfortunately, Gaikwad’s not coming now for personal reasons. We’re not going to have him for Scarborough or for the rest of the season. So that’s disappointing. I can’t tell you anything about the reasons why, but we hope that everything’s ok. We’ve literally just found out. We’re working behind the scenes on what we can do,” McGrath said.
“But it’s only two or three days away, so I’m not sure what we can do at the moment. We’re working to try and get a possible replacement, but time pressure is the issue. I can’t give you anything more than that at the moment,” he added.
Ruturaj’s FC numbers
Gaikwad has played 38 first class matches, scoring 2632 runs at an average of 41.77. He has hit seven centuries in red-ball cricket. Meanwhile, even though the Pune-born was part of the India A squad, he is still far away from a possible call-up to the Test squad. Even in white ball cricket, Gaikwad seems to be a bit far away from the call-up, especially after pulling out of the IPL.