Anurag Kumar
Yashasvi Jaiswal, a young man from Bhadohi who honed his skills on the merciless Mumbai Maidans, enjoyed his finest day on the cricket pitch with an unbeaten century on his debut as India seized complete control on the second day of the opening Test against the West Indies.
Rohit Sharma sacrificed his natural flair en route to his tenth Test century and a record 229-run opening stand with Jaiswal (143 batting, 350 balls) as India batted cautiously but still did well to bat West Indies out of the game, ending the second day on 312 for two.
India only scored 232 runs in 90 overs for the entire day. Jaiswal, who batted for the entirety of the second day, is accompanied by the experienced Virat Kohli (36 batting, 96 deliveries) as the pair added 72 runs for the third wicket. India currently have a 162-run advantage and are expected to bat for the majority of the third day before unleashing Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja on an opponent who lacks the technical ability to counter them for two days.
The batsmen Jaiswal, 21 years old, and Rohit, 36 years old, represent the antithesis of the Mumbai ‘Khadoos’ school of batting. Each is extravagant in their own right.
On Thursday, however, they channelled their inner ‘Khadoos Mumbaikar’ as Jaiswal required 215 balls to become the fourteenth Indian debutant to score a hundred and Rohit required 220 balls to reach the same milestone.
After 41 long years, since India’s 1982 tour of England, where Suru Nayak and Sunil Gavaskar opened, two Mumbai men opened for the country against the West Indies and posted the best ever opening stand of 229, surpassing the previous best of 201 established by Sanjay Bangar and Virender Sehwag in 2001.
The Windsor Park course was a two-pace one where the ball gripped and leisurely turns were available. On such courses, it is challenging to score rapidly, but not too difficult to grind the competition into submission.
It was a prime example of traditional Test match batting. Jaiswal and Rohit performed this action. As none of the West Indies bowlers appeared to be menacing, both batsmen relied on their defensive strategies when faced with threatening deliveries.
Due to the endearing nature of Jaiswal’s rags-to-riches story, his century is sure to generate a reasonable amount of elation among fans.
The young man’s tale of selling Panipuris on Mumbai’s Azad Maidan and scaling the boundary wall to catch a glimpse of the IPL on a giant screen warms one’s heart, and one wishes for his success.
As he appeared to play a half-sweep, half-lap shot towards backward square leg for a single, Jaiswal let out a tremendous bellow of relief and bowed towards the dressing room. The finest of his fourteen fours was the pull off Alzarri Joseph that got him to fifty.
His solid technique, reasonable understanding of where his off-stump was, and assured footwork against spinners stood out. Considering his tremendous patience and choice of loose deliveries, along with his impressive temperament, he appears to be fit for international cricket.
This century demonstrates that he belongs at the international level, but on this track against a weak assault, it is difficult to predict how he would perform in South Africa and Australia.
A free-flowing stroke-maker like Rohit may not have been overly ecstatic despite achieving a century due to the aggressiveness and nature of the pitch.
Rohit’s flicked six over deep mid-wicket off Joseph (0/65 in 14 overs) was worth a million dollars and was the finest shot of the day. Jomel Warrican’s left-arm spinner conceded another uncontested six in the same region, along with a backfoot square cut.
The India captain was dismissed immediately after scoring his tenth Test century when his defensive dart off debutant Alick Athanaze’s off-break was caught by keeper Joshua Da Silva.
As a result of remaining in the dugout with pads on for nearly 76 overs, Shubman Gill’s (6 off 10 balls) first game as No. 3 did not get off to a good start.
After a sluggish first session that produced 66 runs, the second session was the most fruitful with 99 runs, while the third session produced 67 runs.
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In fact, the pitch was so slow that Jaiswal could be heard on the stump microphone informing Kohli, “I’m hitting hard, but the ball isn’t moving.” Jaiswal became the third Indian opener to score a century on Test debut, following Shikhar Dhawan (2013) and Prithvi Shaw (2018).
While Dhawan was unable to replicate that afternoon in Mohali in his next 33 games, Shaw, who was the most promising batsman to come out of the Mumbai batting establishment, stumbled after a blistering start to his international career. Jaiswal would believe that this beginning is the foundation for many greater things to come in the future.
