CHENNAI: Yashasvi Jaiswal is the talk of the town among the cricketing circles at the moment. It is not that he made his international debut or he just broke into the global scene with an inspiring story – he does have one which has been trending – last week.
He did something else. The Gen Z star took it upon himself to put on a show – read Test double – against one of the biggest teams in the world. In doing so, he became the third youngest to achieve the feat, rightly taking him to every nook and corner of the cricketing community across the world.
ing all this feels “unreal” for Jwala Singh, who saw Jaiswal when he was 12, took him under his wings and made him a cricketer. Having migrated to the city of dreams in his pursuit to become a cricketer himself before becoming a coach, Singh knew the youngster was special when he first saw the southpaw.
“I think something, what I visualized when I was working with him from a young age, it’s becoming real. Before he even played U-19 cricket, I was telling people that he’ll play for India. And that’s what ‘s happening. So I think it’s something I really visualized and it’shappening. So yes, I’m very, very happy and I hope this goes as long as it can,” he tells this daily.
The inspiring personal journey apart, what sets out Jaiswal is that he is not just a Gen Z, IPL generation cricketer. Yes, he bats like a dream in the shortest format – 625 runs for Rajasthan Royals at 48.08 average and 163.
61 strike rate in IPL 2023 – but Jaiswal is so much more than that. As much as he has achieved fame and success at the biggest T20 league, he is old school in a sense that Jaiswal’s Test call-up came because he broke down the door by piling runs in red-ball cricket. From 2022 till his India debut, the left-hander averaged 82.95 in red-ball cricket, smashing 1825 runs in 24 innings.