India is down, but not altogether out. With Ajinkya Rahane and KS Bharat out there and Shardul Thakur to follow, there is fight left. Or so we hope. Shardul scored two fifties here at The Oval in 2021, and all of India will hope he can doe it again on Day 3. And with Shardul, England always brings out something special.
There is a saying that if you are talented, Mumbai doesn’t let you return empty-handed. Shardul’s story, which started in 2006, is similar. Dinesh Lad, the cricket coach of Swami Vivekananda International School, had been frantically calling one Narendra Thakur for at least six months, but each time his proposal was met with stiff resistance. Narendra Thakur was a vegetable farmer from Palghar, a district on the western lines around 90 kms from Mumbai. Lad had watched Shardul, Thakur’s teenage son, bat and bowl at an inter-school event and wanted the 14-year-old to join his school.
Lad, a former Western Railway cricketer, is a disciple of the great Ramakant Achrekar. He was Achrekar’s student in the late 1970s and early ’80s. Just like his guru had an eye for talent and the ability to convince parents to get their wards to enrol with Sharadashram Vidyamandir, Lad would also venture out on talent hunts in and around Mumbai after the Borivali school’s management had entrusted him with the responsibility of building a competitive cricket team. In trying to do so, he spotted a young Shardul, who defied his slight build to bowl reasonably quick and could also put wood to leather with a lot of conviction.
“I called up Shardul’s father at least 20 times in those six months and every time he would politely tell me ‘Sir, hum apne bachhe ko roz paanch ghante ka safaar nahin karwayenge. Uska padhai thik se nahi ho payega [Sir, I can’t let my son travel five hours each day. It will affect his studies].’” It was what any other middle-class Indian parent would tell any games teacher. Academics is important, and more so if the kid has to make a round trip of five hours between Palghar and Mumbai regularly.
In India, most people have their exclusive “Eureka” moment over a cup of steaming hot tea while discussing monthly budgets with their spouses. This is precisely what happened with Lad. One evening while he was sitting with his wife, Deepali, he asked her if she would mind if he decided on keeping young Shardul with them in the house? “If you feel that’s the right thing to do, I have no problems,” was Mrs Lad’s answer. “I feel, that my wife’s unconditional support went a long way,” said Lad. “Yes, people come up and congratulate me for Rohit, for Shardul, but Deepali’s role in their development can’t be overlooked.
“She had faith in my conviction, and that’s why I could do it the way I wanted.” The next moment, Lad was again on the phone with Narendra, but this time he had a fresh proposal. “Will you be okay if Shardul stays at my place, studies at Swami Vivekananda, and takes cricket coaching? I feel he will play a decent level of cricket in coming years.” It was Lad’s last throw of the dice, and this time Thakur senior was taken aback but not dismissive. Narendra relented and thus began the story of Shardul Thakur.
From the heavily crowded suburban trains to the dusty Mumbai maidans and to Australia and then England, when the struggles and hard work of those years finally bore fruit. It started with six sixes in an over for Swami Vivekananda in a Harris Shield Plate division game against Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan School. The unfortunate bowler was a spinner named Vishal Dhruv. “He loved his batting, and even though he was a specialist bowler, he enjoyed hitting those big sixes,” said Lad. Nathan Lyon now knows a thing or two about Shardul’s hitting abilities. So do the English bowlers who witnessed it here at The Oval in 2021.
Kapil Dev was certainly the first Man-from-Hinterland success story in Indian cricket, but it’s now an undeniable fact that Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s fairy-tale story was the trigger for many to follow. “Shardul is that gaaon ka ladka (village boy) that you will be fond of,” said Lad. “Quietly confident, respectful, but with tremendous determination. Otherwise, after that extremely disheartening Test debut where he hobbled out, he couldn’t have made a comeback in Tests. Yes, the injuries in the Indian team played a part, but when he got the chance, he looked the part.”
While seven wickets on his ‘literal Test debut’ is special, the 67 that he scored was the real icing on the cake, winning India the game and the series.
There couldn’t have been a better first run in Test cricket than a hooked six off Pat Cummins. “That first shot came from nowhere,” Shardul told us. “I wasn’t preparing to play that shot, but in the back of my mind, I was ready for Cummins to bowl me a bouncer. We had seen in the previous matches that as soon as our tail came in to bat, the Australian bowlers would bowl bouncers. I just reacted to the ball. The whole idea was to keep playing normal cricket. It was a good outcome of a better mindset.”
There was a signature cover-drive off Lyon, one you would want to see a million times, and the six that brought about his fifty was picture-postcard stuff. “He was initially bowling deliveries that were drifting away and I couldn’t score,” recollected Shardul. “I knew that during the spell he will try to flight it, and I waited for that delivery. As soon as I stepped out, I knew the ball was in the slot and I can play the straight loft.”
Lad remembers how he and Shardul had a chat about some technical issues he was facing while batting. “He told me he was playing across the line and was finding it difficult as he couldn’t control the bat speed while negotiating the express pace,” Lad explained. “I told him why don’t you try to play late. I can understand that nearly every ball is 140 clicks, but you can try to play a touch late and see how it goes.”
With Shardul, you give him a bat and Brisbane or Th Oval 2021 can happen again and again – be it the WTC final, or any other big stage. The commitment will be 110 percent. And all of India will be hope it happens one more time.