Saurashtra batter Avi Barot, a former India Under-19 captain and a member of the Ranji Trophy winning team in the 2019-20 season, has died after suffering a cardiac arrest at a shockingly young age of 29.
Avi Barot has played 38 first-class matches, 38 List A matches, and 20 Twenty20 matches during his career, including 21 matches in the Ranji Trophy and 11 domestic T20 matches for Saurashtra. He played as a right-handed wicket-keeper-batsman and scored 1,547 runs, 1,030 runs and 717 runs in first-class, List-A and T20 respectively.
He is survived by his mother and wife, who is expecting the couple''s first child. "Avi was at home when he felt unwell. He was being rushed to the hospital and breathed his last inside the ambulance. He was a very lively boy and seeing his talent, I brought him to Saurashtra from Haryana where he started his first-class career," Saurashtra Cricket Association (SCA) President Jaydev Shah told PTI.
"Avi''s father passed away at 42. He is now survived by his mother and wife who is four months pregnant. It will take a lot of time for me to accept this tragedy," Shah said.
"I am still in a state of shock. He was just 29 and last week we had a state-level tournament Jeevan Trophy where he came and played. I infact told him you are scoring runs, you can take it easy but he said ''Jaydev bhai we need to win it''," Shah recalled.
The Saurashtra Cricket Association also issued a statement to express its condolences.
"Everyone at Saurashtra Cricket Association (is) deeply shocked and saddened on (the) very shocking, untimely and extremely sad demise of Avi Barot, remarkable and notable cricketer of Saurashtra," the SCA stated in a media release issued.
"This is absolutely shocking and painful to learn about Avi''s sad demise. He was a great teammate and had great cricketing skills. In all recent domestic matches, he had performed remarkably well," Shah said.
"He was a very friendly and noble human being. We all at Saurashtra Cricket Association are in deep shock," added the former Saurashtra captain.
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