Yashaswi Jaiswal celebrates after scoring a century
Credit: PTI Photo
Rajkot: It’s time to put the paani-puri-seller narrative to rest. It’s redundant because what Yashasvi Jaiswal has become is a far more exciting line of conversation.
History has its place, but to drag in poverty, when potential and promise are the real talking points, is just clickbait for the saps. Moreover, the 22-year-old Mumbaikar is so frequent at putting up big centuries for India, his childhood struggles aren’t even required to accentuate his ability.
Take Saturday for example, he scored 104 from 133 balls with five sixes and nine fours to bring up his third ton in seven Tests. These games also include a couple of half-centuries. In all, he has scored 12 hundreds and four fifties in 39 first-class innings.
We will have to wait until he gets out to get an update on his overall average, but for that, we might have to hold on till the fourth day of the third Test in Rajkot, because Jaiswal isn’t done yet. He did have some trouble with his back towards the end of the day and was attended to a couple of times over by the team physiotherapist, before walking off with less than 30 minutes left for stumps.
Rajat Patidar joined Shubam Gill (65 n.o.) upon Jaiswal’s retirement. The former couldn’t hold ground, and so Kuldeep Yadav was sent in to do the dirty work of a nightwatchman. At the end of day’s play, India finished on 196 for 2 in 51 overs.
The currently-curtailed 155-run partnership between Gill and Jaiswal for the second-wicket had come from 195 balls, and it was the cornerstone on which India built a 322-run lead going into the penultimate day.
Surely, this is what India hoped for when the day started, but it’s not a scenario they would have expected to be in given the series of events from 24 hours ago.
England had rushed to 207 for 2 in response to India’s first-innings tally of 445. Ben Duckett was on a tear, ending the evening on 133, and England have plenty of batting girth.
England trailed by 238 runs, skipper Rohit Sharma must have a been tad worried. And then, R Ashwin was ruled out of the Test due to a medical emergency later that evening.
Karnataka’s Devdutt Padikkal was going to replace him on the field. In essence, though, India were down to ten men, and without the greatest Indian off-spinner of all time, statistically.
No pressure. India picked up eight wickets for 195 runs in under three hours to take a 126-run lead.
Mohammed Siraj bagged four for 84. Kuldeep Yadav (2/77) and Ravindra Jadeja (2/51) picked up a couple each to wrap it up nicely. Duckett was kept down to 153 from 151 runs. It’s a scenario Ashwin had postulated in the post-day press conference on Friday.
In his tone, however, there was some apprehension about the batting unit. Third-day pitch, second innings, ‘Bazball’-appropriate field positions, a handy group of English bowlers…
Jaiswal took all of it out of the equation.
He came on with a simple enough plan: play the initial phase out, get your eye in and then explode. He got the first bit right when he played 54 balls for 19 runs with one boundary when the tea break was taken.
India were on 44 for 1 and Gill was on 5. Dicey.
For close to ten overs in the post-tea period, the duo stuck to the dead bat, only offering a glance or a guiding touch when there was some width on offer.
All that changed in the 27th over when Jaiswal went after James Anderson. Nineteen runs were extracted, and thereafter, all anyone ever saw was fielders picking up the ball from the fence. Then there was suspense regarding Jaiswal’s lower back.