The venue was Potchefstroom, with India U-19 taking on Bangladesh U-19 in the 2020 U-19 World Cup final. Shoriful Islam and Tanzim Hasan, the two Bangladeshi seamers, were in excellent rhythm. Shoriful, in particular, beat the bat of Yashasvi Jaiswal on enough occasions.
Despite those close shaves, and despite scoring just five off his first 28 deliveries, Jaiswal seemed to have unremitting belief that he would wade through the tricky phase. Soon, he essayed a pull off Tanzim and then a flick off Avishek Das. Jaiswal didn’t stop there as he top-scored for India with a valiant innings of 88.
Jaiswal’s trait to somehow find an invisible erase button fitted in his brain and forget the previous outcome has helped him to not just succeed at the junior level, but also in the top echelons of cricket. He currently averages over 50 in Test cricket after playing 22 Tests.
Just to capsulise how he has gone about collecting runs in Test cricket, take into consideration his maiden Test hundred in England, in Leeds. Jaiswal’s false-shot percentage was over 25%, but every single time England’s pacers bowled too full, he invariably thumped those offerings to the boundary hoardings.
Unfortunately for Jaiswal and India, since that hundred, he has compiled only 132 runs in the ongoing England-India Test series. His shot selection also came in for some criticism after he attempted an ill-advised pull shot while facing Jofra Archer in the second innings at Lord’s.
The keynote to that dismissal was Jaiswal looked to pull a quick short delivery that was bowled outside the off-stump. Even if Jaiswal wanted to play with positive intent as India pursued a target of 193, the upper-cut could have been a batter choice of shot. Having said that, batting is instinctive, and every cricketer is bound to make mistakes in relation to shot selection.
There is one more subset to be analysed as far as Jaiswal’s batting is concerned. There is a school of thought that as Jaiswal is a back foot player, a pace bowler can tempt him to drive by pitching one on a fuller length and outside the off-stump from over the wicket. Just that, be it in England or Australia, the right-arm pacers in particular have tended to whistle past the outside edge.
Since that first innings in Leeds, England’s right-arm pacemen, however, have looked to bowl straighter lines and pull the length back a tad – be it from over or round the wicket. Basically, the idea is to force Jaiswal to play at more deliveries. Even when Jaiswal was dismissed by Archer in the first innings at Lord’s, the quick bowler had shortened his length a touch and bowled a straighter line after beating him in the channel outside the off-stump.
On one of the occasions, at Edgbaston, Jaiswal had a narrow escape as an umpire’s call on an LBW appeal went his way. But there is no doubt that England’s Plan A versus Jaiswal is to now attack the stumps a lot more. It isn’t as if Jaiswal can’t counter England’s modus operandi. The southpaw did try to take more of a front foot stride in Australia, especially while facing Mitchell Starc. And he was rewarded with runs. It would be interesting to see if Jaiswal employs a similar method in England.
In his brief career, Jaiswal has showcased sound temperament. A few failures don’t seem to affect him mentally. But opposition teams too would be poring through plenty of videos in order to locate weaknesses in a batter’s game. The litmus test for Jaiswal now is to search for ways to negate the ever-evolving tactics of opposition teams. The Indian think-tank would have faith in the left-hander to navigate his way through a mini slump and regain his form in the all-important Old Trafford Test.
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