The 2024 Indian Premier League campaign saw the breakthrough of star cricketer Abhishek Porel. The 21-year-old cricketer Abhishek Porel smashed 327 runs at a solid strike rate of 160 for the Delhi Capitals, predominantly batting at the top of the order.
Abhishek Porel stormed into the spotlight in the 2024 IPL, but he is still very much a greenhorn, having only played two full seasons of professional cricket so far. The left-handed batter, thus, still has a long way to go before reaching the epitome of the level, but when it comes to Abhishek Porel, there is no paucity of ambition.
Abhishek Porel astounding career in Ranji Trophy 2023-24
Hailing from a cricketing family—his cousin Ishan is a pacer for West Bengal and has turned up for Punjab Kings—Abhishek made his first-class debut in 2022, straightaway impressing with his clean takes and good hand-eye coordination. And he had opened in List A and the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy as well.
So, when Pant was on the fence after a road accident, Delhi Capitals approached Abhishek Porel on the advice of Sourav Ganguly, their director of cricket. From there, it has been onwards and upwards for Porel, entering the team as a lower order batter before slowly cementing his place.
A cold winter morning in Kolkata. Bengal are playing Chhattisgarh in the 2023/24 Ranji Trophy. Abhishek Porel arrives at Eden Gardens 40 minutes before the reporting time for Day 2. He is batting on 47 overnight.
He bats the whole morning, through the entire afternoon. Soon after the final session resumes, he completes a double, runs around the crease in a semicircle, opens his helmet, throws his head back in both ecstasy and relief, and raises his bat to the applauding dugout. The 21-year-old has a maiden century. He is eventually dismissed on 114 off 219 balls. On his way out of the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) lobby that evening, he says:
“Last evening, our head coach Laxmi Ratan Shukla said to me, ‘If you don’t get out to the short ball, you will get a hundred.’”
He arrived way before any of his teammates, just to practice leaving bouncers.
Around the same time the previous year, Porel had perished to the short ball in the Ranji final. It came just four deliveries after a well-set Manoj Tiwary got out, with Bengal still 32 runs away from making Saurashtra bat again. The wicketkeeper-batter had to rise to the adversity, handhold the tail and dig deep. Taking on deep square leg and holing out was tantamount to throwing his wicket away.
“Yeah, you can say, it was a trigger. Because I loved playing the pull shot, I was angry with myself for getting out to it,” Abhishek Porel tells in a freewheeling chat with Sportskeeda.
And it wasn’t the only instance the southpaw, with a tall frame, employed his favorite shot and fell prey to it.
Abhishek Porel standout performer in IPL 2024.
To be called up as Rishabh Pant’s replacement is no small feat. But the story goes that the 21-year-old Abhishek Porel had slept through the first time Delhi Capitals called him to inform of his selection ahead of the 2023 edition of IPL. An injury during the pre-tournament camp had also messed with Porel’s fitness. When he did get a chance, it was all of four matches. Thirty-three runs off 31 balls was nothing to ride home about, but surprisingly he was retained for 2024. And he repaid the faith this time, scoring 360 runs at a strike rate of 152.54.
Abhishek Porel hit 36 boundaries this season, joint highest for Capitals along with Pant. More intriguing is how Porel has achieved those numbers batting from No.1 to No.9 across 12 innings. He began this edition as Impact Player, coming in at No.9 against Punjab Kings and clobbering an unbeaten 32 off just 10 balls. And even though Porel’s first fifty came pretty late into the IPL, he did it off just 28 balls, that too opening the batting in place of Prithvi Shaw.
Making Porel open the batting wasn’t a knee jerk decision. Against Sunrisers Hyderabad, Porel had hammered 42 off 22 after coming in the second over at No.4. And a week before that, he had scored 41 off 31 at No.3 against Mumbai Indians.
But by making him open again in Capitals’ last league match (against the Lucknow Super Giants), Ponting made it amply clear they are ready to invest as much time and resources as possible to make a proper cricketer out of Porel. This time, Porel again responded with a fifty, and a brisk one at that (off 21 balls).
The breakthrough in the IPL 2024, in many ways, came as a surprise. The Bengal-born cricketer played in the 2023 IPL and had a very ordinary campaign overall, averaging just 8.25. Ahead of the IPL 2024, Porel’s average in T20 cricket read just 22.82, with him having just two fifty-plus scores under his belt. Interestingly, the IPL 2024 witnessed the young cricketer realize his potential, amassing 327 runs while passing the 30-run mark six times in the 14 innings he batted.
Much of Abhishek Porel’s strength lies in a thoroughly uncomplicated technique with no exaggerated movement or superfluous flourish. He can be a little edgy against quality spin but Porel more than makes up for that against pace, staying tall and using his long hands as levers to find his range.
Above all, it’s the heart to fight the odds that impresses everyone. Hovering in the fringes of an IPL team is a story many uncapped Indians share. Very few get a genuine crack at proving themselves, even less from West Bengal. And when they do, there is no guarantee minds won’t change next year. Porel has a different story though.
To survive and thrive in a team stacked with clean hitters like David Warner, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Prithvi Shaw, Pant and Tristan Stubbs can be exacting. But Abhishek Porel has done that, proving that there might be a place for him in IPL after all.
Abhishek Porel wishes to play for Team India
If you look at Abhishek Porel’s fast-rising stocks, his dynamic demeanor, or his social media, you’d imagine him to be a certain way. Curt, estranged, tunnel vision-ed, and dare we say, PR-ed. But he’s the exact opposite. Warm, affectionate, endearing, easy-going, and always greeting you with a “How are you?” upon meeting. Almost like MS Dhoni, when the great man was starting out.
“He [Dhoni] is a very calm and composed person. It’s not like he doesn’t get excited, but he doesn’t show those emotions on camera. When you are in a pressure situation, the key is to hold your nerve. Because if you can’t, your mind won’t function properly,” Abhishek Porel tells in the 30-minute long interview with Sportskeeda.
Everyone knows the importance of holding the nerve. It is the execution part where people falter. Sport is as much mental as it is physical and technical, if not more. And Porel has learnt it young.
“I do meditate. I do it for longer during days’ matches and for less time otherwise. Because I know I have to bat six hours if I have to score a hundred. So I meditate for 10-15 minutes either after waking up in the morning or before going to sleep,” he said with innocence.
One of the best qualities of Abhishek Porel is his ability to compartmentalize. He caters to all his interests, without letting one come in the way of another. It’s almost like the childhood timetable which also allows you to go out to play only if it doesn’t hamper studies.
“I have somewhere been inspired by Hardik Pandya. I liked the way he dressed and I spoke to him as well. I share a good bond with him. Whenever we meet, he tells me, ‘Mehnat karte raho. Mehnat nahin chodne ka.’ When I met him in the IPL this year, he was like, ‘Style toh sab mera tum le hi liya. Thoda power badha lo, toh ho jayega baaki kaam,’” he revealed, breaking into laughter.
Some of the mushrooming T20 stars earned a maiden India call-up for the customary Zimbabwe tour after the IPL. With Jitesh Sharma having had a disastrous season and Sanju Samson missing the first two matches owing to the 2024 T20 World Cup celebrations, you’d have been forgiven to consider Abhishek Porel’s inclusion.
“I don’t think I performed well enough to get picked for the Zimbabwe tour. I don’t look at specific things like whether they need a wicketkeeper or not. I prefer sticking to my process and the things that are in my control. If an opportunity indeed comes by, then well and good and I will prepare myself accordingly.
And if I don’t get selected, I am prepared for that too, because I don’t think I am ready for international cricket just yet. I feel I can take some more time to prepare myself because I have time on my side,” he analyzed.
That is the kind of awareness and pragmatism needed to stay on track in today’s cut-throat world. He is among the lucky ones to have learnt it the hard way.
In November of 2021, Abhishek Porel was playing the Challenger Trophy, a men’s Under-19 one-day competition, which was almost an audition for the World Cup in two months’ time. He could manage only 78 runs in four matches. He redeemed himself almost immediately, in the Cooch Behar Trophy, the equivalent first-class competition featuring four-day games. Porel scored 716 runs in nine games at a strike rate of 82.11 with three hundreds and four fifties to boot.
But the World Cup train had already chugged out of the platform with Dinesh Bana on it. Porel does have a picture with the trophy, but that was after he was flown in as a reserve player following the Covid-19 outbreak.
“Devang sir [Devang Gandhi was Bengal’s then Under-19 coach] told me that so many players have been forgotten after playing the Under-19 World Cup. He said, ‘If god gave you two options – the Under-19 World Cup and the actual World Cup – which one would you choose?’ I obviously said, the senior World Cup.
And he told me if I worked hard in the next four years, I would definitely get my rewards. If I score runs, I need not tell anything to anyone because people will automatically take notice,” he finished.
With more of the self-actualization, judiciousness, practicality, fitness, hard work, and those cracking pull shots, there’s no stopping Abhishek Porel.