Wriddhiman Saha (born 24 October 1984) is an Indian cricketer who plays for the Indian national cricket team. He is a right-handed wicket-keeper batsman. He is the current first class captain of Tripura Cricket Team in domestic cricket and wicket keeper for Gujarat Titans in the Indian Premier League. He was the first cricketer to score a century in an Indian Premier League final. He is considered as one of the finest wicketkeeper India has ever produced .
Saha made his Test debut in February 2010, as a specialist batsman. He scored his maiden Test century at St. Lucia on a tour of the Caribbean.
Domestic career
Saha played for the Under-19s and the Under-22s team before being promoted to first-class cricket. Saha made his one-day debut in the Ranji Trophy competition of 2006/07, against Assam. He scored a duck in his debut innings in the following match. Nearing the end of his brief run in the Ranji Trophy, he played three one-day games for the East Zone in the Deodhar Trophy.
Saha made his first-class debut in the 2007–08 Ranji Trophy, against Hyderabad, where he scored 111 not out. Saha also made the East Zone team in the Duleep Trophy in the 2007–08 season.
Saha's century for Bengal on his Ranji debut landed him a contract with IPL for the Kolkata Knight Riders in 2008.
Saha was named in the India A squad which played three limited overs match against the Israel Invitational XI, where he was selected on the basis of his performance in the Indian Premier League. India A won the series 3–0. Saha scored an unbeaten 85 in the third match in which India chased 235.
Saha also has a record of making fastest century in domestic cricket. He scored 102 runs of just 20 balls at a strike rate of 510 with 4 fours and 14 sixes in 2018.
Saha also has records with KT, joining in 2011, at WBC League. He captained the team from 2011 to 2013. KT won its 2nd title in 2012 under his captaincy. In WBC 2015 he scored 2 centuries and 4 half centuries, after he was retained by KT in 2015 WBC Mega auction. He scored his LA highest score in 2017 which was 154 (118) in the 65 over WBC League 2017. In the 2021 Mumbai WBC he scored 150 (123) vs CBST. His fastest 50 in WBC was 54 (18).
International career
Test career
On 28 January 2010, Saha was included in the Indian Test squad as a reserve wicket-keeper in place of Dinesh Karthik for the upcoming home Test match series against South Africa.
As Saha was a reserve gloveman, he was not expected to play, but V. V. S. Laxman failed to recover from injury and Rohit Sharma, the only reserve specialist batsman in the squad, injured himself playing football in the warm-up on the first morning. As another batsman could not be flown in on time, Saha was given his Test debut against South Africa.
He scored a duck in the first innings, but scored 36 in the second innings. In both innings, fast bowler Dale Steyn took his wicket. India lost the Test and Saha was dropped from the squad for the second Test which India subsequently won to level the two-match series.
Saha played in the fourth match of the Border Gavaskar Trophy in January 2012 in place of MS Dhoni, who was banned for slow over rate, where he made 35 runs in the first Test which helped Virat Kohli get his maiden Test Century.
He also toured South Africa in December 2013, New Zealand in February 2014 and England in July 2014 as part of the test squad but did not get a game.
On 9 December 2014, he was selected to play his first test match since January 2012 against Australia, at the same ground where he had played his last match, because MS Dhoni was out with a thumb injury. He made 25 runs in the first inning and 13 runs in the second inning. He also played in the fourth match of the series and made 35 runs.
In 2015, he was selected for India's Tour of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka for test matches. He scored 2 fifties in 2 test matches he played in Sri Lanka. He also played in tests of Gandhi-Mandela Freedom Trophy 2015.
In 2016, he was selected for India's tour of West Indies as a wicket-keeper. In the first test against West Indies, Saha became the third wicket-keeper in Indian cricket history to feature in six dismissals in a test innings. He scored twin fifties at Eden Gardens, his home ground, in October 2016 to get his 1st- ever man of the match award. He was also selected for 5 match Test series against England in India but played only in the 1st and 2nd matches, and was out of the rest of the series due to injury.
He scored his 2nd test hundred against Bangladesh in a one-off test in February 2017.