Former New Zealand Test opener Jeet Rawal has announced his retirement from professional cricket. 38-year-old Raval played 24 Test matches for New Zealand between 2016 and 2020. He has more than 10 thousand runs in his name in first class cricket. After saying goodbye to cricket, he can now focus on his career as a chartered accountant.
Rawal was born on 22 September 1988 in Gujarat. His family moved to Auckland, New Zealand when he was a teenager. He made his first-class debut for Auckland in December 2008 against the touring West Indies team. His cricket career lasted for about 18 years.
Studied with Parthiv Patel, then played for New Zealand
Jeet Rawal also has a special connection with Indian cricket. He studied at Vidyanagar School in Ahmedabad with Indian wicketkeeper-batsman Parthiv Patel. After going to New Zealand, Rawal progressed from Under-19 cricket there to the senior team.
Raval, who initially played in the middle order for Auckland, later became one of the successful openers of New Zealand’s domestic cricket. He opened in 285 of his 292 first class innings and scored 10,127 runs during this period. As an opener, his average was 37.36, while he scored 23 centuries.
While captaining Northern Districts in December 2025, he became the 30th New Zealand player to score 10,000 runs in first class cricket. His last competitive match was in the Plunket Shield against Central Districts in March this year.
Played 24 tests for New Zealand
Rawal made his Test debut against Pakistan in Christchurch in 2016. He scored 1,143 runs in 24 tests for New Zealand. During this period, one century and seven half-centuries came from his bat. He had to wait for 28 innings for his first Test century.
He was part of the New Zealand team that won the first World Test Championship (WTC) title in June 2021. After the title win, he also participated in a week-long tour organized in different parts of New Zealand with the test mace.
Raval later told that despite not scoring a century in the initial phase of his career, Kane Williamson, Ross Taylor and other senior players of the team supported him. This gave him the confidence to contribute to the team even under pressure.
However, his form declined during the series against England and the tour of Australia. After not being able to perform as expected in some matches, the team management turned to another option. Raval had expressed disappointment over this decision, but also said that he was happy that another player performed as per the need of the team.
Excellent record in domestic cricket
Raval represented Auckland, Central Districts and Northern Districts in New Zealand domestic cricket. He scored a total of 8,662 runs in Plunket Shield. In the history of this tournament, Michael Papps (11,463), Matthew Sinclair (8,842) and Peter Fulton (8,719) have scored more runs than him.
With Northern Districts, he played a key role in helping the team win its first Plunket Shield title in more than a decade in 2024-25. He also contributed with his part-time leg spin and took 14 wickets at an average of 11.14 that season. During this, he also achieved the feat of taking five wickets in first class cricket for the first time.
In List A cricket, Rawal scored 2,714 runs in 96 matches and took 44 wickets. He has 1,484 runs in his name in 76 matches of T20 cricket. His T20 average was 21.50 and strike rate was 121.44. Outside the field, Rawal is working as a chartered accountant in an auditing firm. In the last phase of his career, he also tried his hand in coaching. Along with cricket, he was also a chartered accountant and worked as an assistant to head coach Tarun Nethula in the Samoan team.