By Bharath Ramaraj
On a typical hot and humid day in Mumbai, Gujarat Titans had entrusted Yash Dayal with the task of bowling the crucial 19th over in their 2022 IPL game against Kolkata Knight Riders. The task given was to prevent Andre Russell, the big-hitting all-rounder, from landing meaty blows. The unassuming left-arm pace bowler nailed the yorker a few times and was able to keep Russell relatively quiet. Eventually, Gujarat sealed the game by a narrow margin of eight runs.
But bowling in the slog overs can break the spirit of the best of bowlers. There is little margin for error in an era of 360-degree batting and well-pressed willows. Just a year after Dayal went up against the might of Russell, his world came crashing down with a huge thud as he was smacked for 30 runs in a mere five balls by KKR’s Rinku Singh. Dayal attempted three yorkers, but all of them turned out to be full tosses. His Plan B of bowling slower short balls into the wicket didn’t work either against Rinku’s bazooka hits.
Chanderpal Dayal, Yash’s father, shares his thoughts with Revsportz on his son’s nightmarish day at the Narendra Modi Stadium. “That day, it was his bad day, his brain just froze. Every ball, someone was saying something,” said Chanderpal. “So his brain didn’t work at that time. I know it is in his nature to make a strong comeback.”
While watching the last over with the rest of his family, Chanderpal was quietly confident. After all, it is not often a batter cracks five sixes in a row and that too while chasing down a target. But through the course of that over, expressions changed from confident to concerned, and finally to pain and agony. As expected, the TV was soon switched off.
“First I saw that they wanted him to bowl the 19th over,” he said. “Then I saw that instead of him, they decided to use [Josh] Little. So, 29 runs had to be defended in the last over. I thought, ‘He would defend this, it isn’t tough’. Then the first six was hit. He kept trying to bowl the yorker and kept getting hit for a six.
“At home, everyone became worried. I again thought, ‘At least the last ball he will stop (the batter) from hitting’. Even that went for a six. I have played lots of cricket. As a cricketer, I didn’t feel anything. But he is my son, and that over went badly, so I felt hurt. His mother became very emotional, his sister as well.”
Meanwhile, for a moment, Dayal must have thought of the unfairness of life. He was on his haunches and, for a second or two, had a piece of cloth tied around his eyes. He was soon down in tears. On the one hand, Rinku – suddenly the talk of the league – was celebrating with his teammates. On the other, Dayal was downcast. The contrast in the fortunes of two players from the same state couldn’t have been sharper.
It isn’t the first time someone has crumbled under pressure in cricket, or sport in general. In cricketing history, the England pair of Ben Stokes and Stuart Broad have navigated similar phases and come out of them stronger. Outside of cricket, back in 1993, Jana Novotna choked while on the cusp of victory in the Wimbledon final against Steffi Graf. She, however, made a redoubtable comeback and went on to win the coveted title in 1998. Closer to home, two of India’s finest athletes – PT Usha and Milkha Singh – missed out on winning the bronze medal at the Olympics by a whisker. But they continued to sprint after the heartbreaks, and won medals for the country.
Dayal senior played in age-group tournaments, and narrates an anecdote from his younger days which illustrates the point that sport is a microcosm of life. “It isn’t like it has happened for the first time in cricket,” he said. “Even with me, it happened. Three balls were left and all three went for a six. One boy smashed me and won the game.
“After the match, I talked to him [Yash], when he had calmed down. I didn’t talk to him much about the over. Right from the ground, everyone had said, ‘Koi baat nahi [It doesn’t matter]’, so that he wouldn’t become depressed. So I thought I would talk about something else. I just told him, ‘You forget what happened, it was a nightmare, it happens in everyone’s life. I have belief in you, I have seen you since your childhood days. Work hard on your game, this over will make you stronger’. For the match against Punjab Kings, I had gone to meet him. His mother had said, ‘You go there. If you go, he will be more confident’.”
Gujarat’s set-up too played a role in keeping Yash in good spirits after the game. As Chanderpal observes, “Hardik Pandya, Ashish Nehra… everyone supported him. After the match, in the hotel, they made him sit in the middle, creating a great atmosphere. Afterwards, there was some music and dance… some light moments.”
Everything that happened in that particular over is now a part of history’s pages. You wonder whether Yash would be able to move on from that one over. But lest we forget, he became a professional cricketer on the back of his sheer love for the sport. And that passion to bowl ball after ball, over after over, would likely help him to rebound from the setback.
“From his school and college days, he used to go to school and then to the ground,” said Chanderpal. “I then sent him to a cricket academy. But you know how kids are. He started saying: ‘Father, I don’t get the chance to bowl, they don’t allow me to bat’. I had a ground in front of my house, so I started my own academy. I started coaching. So I told him, ‘Three to four hours or whatever, you bowl as much as you want’, and he kept bowling.”
Watching the tears trickle from Yash’s eyes, it felt as if there were a few more fine stanzas to be penned in his career. Or perhaps, that is just wishful thinking on the part of a cricket romantic.