As the Duleep Trophy commences in September ahead of Bangladesh tour to India, all eyes would be on Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal future in international cricket. With Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli retiring from T20Is, the young openers Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal replaced them at the top of the order during the recently concluded three-match series against Sri Lanka.
Yashasvi Jaiswal the new prodigy in Indian cricket team.
Yashasvi Jaiswal was only 10 when he moved to Mumbai in pursuit of playing cricket. But the young boy had to struggle a lot to chase his dreams in the big city. Initially, when he had nowhere to go, a dairy owner provided him with a rooftop, but with a condition—the boy had to help him out at the shop. However, since Jaiswal was mostly playing cricket and couldn’t contribute much, the shopkeeper threw him out.
He was on the streets again—with a bat and a bag in his hands. He was left with no option but to move into one of the tents at Azad Maidan, a local ground in Mumbai. He lived alongside the groundsman and sold pani puri in his spare time to earn his livelihood. “We told him to come back, but he said that he would return to the village only when he becomes a player… he was happy to stay in the tent,” says his mother.
The left-handed batter’s first step towards success was when he smashed an astonishing 319 runs and took 13 wickets in a multi-day match of Haris Shield, one of the top school-level tournaments in Mumbai. He hasn’t looked back since. He scored tones of runs at the school level and then for the Mumbai U-16 and U-19 teams. This led to his selection in the Indian U-19 team in 2018.
During his first stint with the national team, the elegant batter emerged as the highest run-getter and steered India to the title in the 2018 U-19 Asia Cup. Jaiswal’s hunger for runs was unreal. He looked unstoppable, topping the batting charts in almost every tournament. The southpaw finished as the highest scorer in the ICC U-19 World Cup 2020 as well.
By now, he had made a name for himself in domestic cricket, pilling huge runs for Mumbai in both the Ranji Trophy—the premier domestic tournament—and white ball events. On the back of these performances, he was picked by Rajasthan Royals for Rs2.4 crore in 2020 in the Indian Premier League (IPL) auction.
For someone who had lived in tents, this kind of money was crazy, but Jaiswal had come a long way in life by then. Fame and money hardly mattered to him, although he was extremely young. Jaiswal had walked through the hardest paths and all that he wanted was to play cricket at the highest level.
Yashasvi Jaiswal’s stellar India career in tests and T20Is
Young India opener Yashasvi Jaiswal has turned out to be one of the brightest prospects in world cricket with his incredible start to international cricket last year. The left-handed batter took just 9 Tests (16 innings) to complete 1000 runs in Test cricket and was the second-fastest Indian to achieve the feat after Vinod Kambli (14 innings).
The 22-year-old announced his arrival in international cricket with a century on his Test debut against West Indies, but it was the series against England that established him as the next big thing in world cricket. He smashed 712 runs in the five-match series and outshined senior pros like Rohit Sharma, Joe Root, Ben Stokes and others.
The swashbuckling opener has also impressed many with his free-flowing batting in T20Is. He has played 23 T20Is for India and scored 723 runs at an astonishing strike rate of 164.32. He is yet to make his ODI debut but still one of the contenders to make into India’s squad for the Champions Trophy next year.
Yashasvi Jaiswal opens up on his learnings from skipper Rohit Sharma
Team India opener Yashasvi Jaiswal termed batting with skipper Rohit Sharma as an incredible experience and opened up about the various learnings gained from him. The 22-year-old debuted for India in July last year and has since forged an excellent opening partnership with Rohit in Tests.
Jaiswal has sparkled on the international stage, crossing 1000 Test runs in only nine games at an average of 68.53 with three centuries. The youngster will be part of Team B in the 2024 Duleep Trophy starting tomorrow (September 5).
On the eve of the side’s first match against Team A, Jaiswal spoke to reporters about his learnings from Rohit Sharma.
“It is an incredible experience whenever I go out and bat with him. He has shared his experiences with me. I think the way he controls the game and understands the wicket, it is spot on and there are a lot of things (to learn from him). You can learn from him things like adjusting your batting to seaming or turning tracks or change your batting when a wicket or two fall,” said Jaiswal.
He added:
“Now, I can see a lot of scenarios and shift my game (accordingly) for the team and read the situations. I think these are very important for me in the last one year. When I was playing domestic cricket, I was not aware of many things. But since I started playing international cricket, the communication and the reading of the game have improved a lot. I just want to keep learning.”
Jaiswal has also played 23 T20Is for India and boasts a healthy average of 36.15 at a strike rate of 164.31. He was also part of the Indian squad which recently won the 2024 T20 World Cup title.
Yashasvi Jaiswal expresses his views on coach Gautam Gambhir.
Yashasvi Jaiswal hailed Team India head coach Gautam Gambhir for backing the players to play with freedom.
Gambhir’s stint as the Indian coach started with the recent white-ball tour to Sri Lanka. The side won the T20I series 3-0 with Jaiswal making valuable contributions in two of the three encounters.
“Yes, I have spoken with him during the Sri Lanka series. He really backed us saying just go out and play freely and enjoy the game and we will be with you. It gives us a lot of confidence and helps us to play fearlessly,” said Jaiswal.
Unfortunately for the Men in Blue, the script flipped in the ODIs with Sri Lanka pulling off a 2-0 series win, resulting in a mixed beginning to Gambhir’s tenure.