Ravi Bopara signs new Sussex T20 deal, officially ending red-ball career

Only four players worldwide – Kieron Pollard, Dwayne Bravo, Chris Gayle and Shoaib Malik – have played more career T20 matches, with Bopara having racked up 389 appearances since playing in the inaugural Twenty20 Cup in 2003

Ravi Bopara has signed a new contract with Sussex that will see him play T20 cricket for the county.

The allrounder joined the club in 2019, having spent his entire career at Essex until then. After a quiet campaign in 2020, he has hit three T20 Blast fifties this summer, averaging 38 in the process as Sussex made it out of their group and into the quarter-finals, where they will face Yorkshire.

Only four players worldwide – Kieron Pollard, Dwayne Bravo, Chris Gayle and Shoaib Malik – have played more career T20 matches, with Bopara  having racked up 389 appearances since playing in the inaugural Twenty20 Cup in 2003. He is currently turning out for London Spirit in The Hundred.

He is the 17th-highest run-scorer in the history of the format and 29th on the all-time list of wicket-takers.

He said: “I’m really pleased to be extending my stay at this wonderful club. The past couple of years have been very different to what I had expected when signing for Sussex, but thanks to everyone at the club I feel very at home now.

“JK [James Kirtley] and the rest of the coaching staff have been brilliant to work with this season, and hopefully we are on the verge of something special with our Blast quarter final coming up. I am hopeful that this could be the start of a period of dominance for the Sharks in the T20 competition and that’s something I want to be part of in the years to come.”

The second coming of Ravi Bopara, an Essex legend determined to follow his T20 dream

Bopara has not played a first-class match since his final game in an Essex shirt, where he was part of the side that clinched the County Championship title against Somerset at Taunton, but he has now officially ended his red-ball career.

“From now on, I will be focusing on T20 cricket,” he said. “I have loved playing red-ball cricket over the years and obviously have some incredible memories in Championship and Test cricket with Essex and England, but my aim now is to get the best out of myself in the T20 format and see where that can take me and the teams I play for.”