Ruturaj Gaikwad Reveals He Initiated ‘Thala For A Reason’ Trend

India batter and CSK captain Ruturaj Gaikwad revealed that he started the 'Thala for a reason' trend even before it existed, sharing an image on his Instagram story.

Star India batter Ruturaj Gaikwad shared a playful MS Dhoni reference on his Instagram story on Thursday, July 11. Notably, a popular social media trend involves fans creatively combining random numbers to total seven, the iconic jersey number of the legendary cricketer.

Nicknamed ‘Thala’ by fans of the Chennai franchise in the Indian Premier League (IPL), Dhoni enjoys a massive fan following. Social media is flooded with posts where fans creatively produce the number seven out of nowhere. To further honor the legendary cricketer, fans caption these posts with ‘Thala for a reason,’ making Dhoni omnipresent in the digital universe.

India batter and CSK skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad recently jumped on to the trend as he shared an image of his T20I cap which has a number 88 on it indicating that he’s the 88th player to represent India in the shortest format.

While posting the image on his story, Gaikwad cleverly added the digits of his cap number, 8+8, to produce 16, and then further combined 1+6 to make 7. Instead of using the numerical digit 7, Gaikwad placed a yellow heart, symbolizing the jersey color of CSK. The CSK captain also noted that he’s ahead of the trend, as he made his T20I debut in 2021 before this trend even existed.

Ruturaj Gaikwad instagram story to ms dhoni
8+8=16
1+6= 7
thala for a reason pic.twitter.com/hb9LkDLqGx

— cricket kida (@cricketkiida) July 11, 2024

“I am ahead of the trend,” wrote Gaikwad on his Instagram story.

The 27 year old played a great knock of 49 runs of 28 balls in the third T20I clash against Zimbabwe as he helped the team to reach a good score of 182/4. He smashed four fours and three sixes in his innings as India won the game by 23 runs and secured a 2-1 lead in the five-match series.

Earlier, Gaikwad scored an unbeaten 77* (47) in the second T20I, forming a massive 137-run partnership with Abhishek Sharma to help India post an impressive total of 234/2 in 20 overs. This outstanding performance led the Men in Blue to a brilliant 100-run victory, making a strong comeback in the series after a 15-run defeat in the first game.

The Pune-born cricketer is also the leading run scorer of the series so far with 133 runs from three innings at an average of 66.50 and a strike rate of 158.33.