Yashasvi Jaiswal is all about hunger. For big runs and daddy hundreds. Someone who many believed wasn’t a Test match player has proven everyone wrong. Centuries in Australia and England and a couple of doubles at home, Jaiswal, at a tender age, has done things that many do not in entire careers.
The reason behind this is his craving for runs. On occasions that he gets in, he makes things count. Tremendous powers of concentration, superb temperament and a deep desire to make the format his own has made Jaiswal stand out in the last two years. If things go right, he could well be scoring a double hundred today and thereafter, with plenty of game left, it could be something defining.
Some experts will still say that his technique isn’t perfect. My point is perfect technique doesn’t deliver runs on the scoreboard. Sachin Tendulkar did not have the perfect grip. He scored 33,000 international runs. The end count is simple. Runs. And more runs. That’s where Jaiswal has delivered for India time and again and that’s all that matters going ahead.
Let me reference a message from a couple of years earlier. “There was quite an emotional moment last night after the match. The stands were empty. Yashasvi had just finished his post-match presentation. Suddenly he rushed to the middle, towards the wicket where the groundsmen were standing. He took pictures with each one of them. This humble attitude of Yashasvi will take him a long way in his journey. He also took a few selfies, in fact he was clicking it for the handful of fans who were still around. Respect to the youngster.” This was sent to me by a man of real eminence.
When I read it for the first time, my thought had gone back to Virat Kohli in Dhaka in 2012. He had just scored a match-winning 183 against Pakistan in a match that ended close to midnight. The media, there in good numbers, were eagerly waiting for Kohli before filing their copies. He, however, had other things in mind.
In Mirpur, the press conference enclosure is on the opposite side of the pavilion and the player has to walk right across the ground to reach the media area. Midway into this walk, Kohli stopped and started jogging towards a section of his fans in the stands. Close to 2,000 people were still screaming ‘Kohli, Kohli’ and their hero, to our surprise, decided to oblige them with photographs and autographs. Soon after reaching the press conference room, he apologised to the media for making them wait and for having forced them to extend their deadlines.
Jaiswal did not make the media wait last evening for he was unbeaten (players usually don’t attend press conferences after the day’s play if they are not out). Nor did he force them to extend their deadlines. But still, there is an uncanny similarity between these incidents. The similarity is the hunger for runs and the rootedness associated with it. And despite there being the gap of a decade, things are eerily the same. It is all about respect for the sport, something that brings Kohli and Jaiswal together. To a double hundred today and more!
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