With the retirement of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli from the T20 Internationals, the transition for Indian cricket is truly on. It looks like the duo may play maximum next 2-3 years before gradually retiring from the other formats of the game. This raises the question of which batters are going to take the load of Indian batting for years to come and a very prominent name is Yashasvi Jaiswal.
Jaiswal, who is not yet 23, has already established himself in Test matches and T20 Internationals for India but yet to make his One Day International debut. There was a chance that he could make his debut in the upcoming Sri Lanka series but with both Rohit and Kohli playing in the series, he needs to wait for few more months. With the 2025 Champions Trophy coming in less than a year, Jaiswal’s ODI chances may be limited till then.
However, he has already achieved a lot in other two formats. The 171 he scored in his Test debut was the third highest score by an Indian debutant in Tests, just behind Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma. He also scored 714 runs in his recent Test series against England and scored two double hundreds to take himself level with some of the legends of the game like Don Bradman, Wally Hamond and Viv Richards.
In T20I’s he has a strike rate of 162.78 after 20 matches which is 11th highest Strike rate by a batter overall. Also interestingly, he is the first Indian batter to score an international century on Chinese soil when he scored a 49-ball 100 against Nepal at the Zhejiang University of Technology Cricket Field during the 2023 Asian Games.
Like many of the recent Indian stars, Jaiswal also raised through ranks by playing age group cricket. He moved to Mumbai at a very young age and had to do extreme struggle in early years to establish himself in the Mumbai cricket scene. But once he established himself in the Mumbai team and became the youngest double centurion in the List-A cricket with his 203 against Jharkhand in the 2019 Vijay Hazare Trophy as 17-years old, he never looked back.
More success came next year when as part of the Indian Under-19 team, Jaiswal delivered some brilliant performance to become the Player-of-the-tournament of the 2020 Under-19 World Cup with 400 runs in 6 matches. Within months he was rewarded with an IPL contract as Rajasthan Royals spent Rs. 2.4 Crore to get the service of the southpaw. It was not a smooth sailing for the youngster as he played only 3 matches in his first season and scored just 40 runs. More chances came next year as he scored his maiden IPL fifty.
The Royals management showed tremendous trust and retained him before the 2022 mega auction. He developed a brilliant opening partnership with the England T20I captain Jos Buttler and delivered more than 1,000 runs in last two seasons at a strike rate touching 160. He scored 2 centuries and 6 fifties during this period, including the fastest IPL half-century which came off just 13 balls at the iconic Eden Gardens against Kolkata Knight Riders in 2023.
His outstanding performance in the 2023 IPL was rewarded with a spot in the West Indies touring squad where he made in international debut in Tests and T20Is and immediately made his mark with debut Test century as mentioned above.
By nature, Jaiswal is an aggressive batter, however at the same time he has enough patience to play long innings in Test matches. Also, he has built his playing style on the classical Mumbai style of fighting spirit and ‘never say die’ attitude. Jaiswal has already reached 1,000 Test runs in just 9 Test matches but only two of those Test matches were in so-called ‘SENA’ countries when he opened for India during the 2023 South Africa tour. He has scored just 50 runs in those 4 innings and did not look comfortable. He will have 5 home Test matches against Bangladesh and New Zealand this year before travelling to Australia to play a 5-match Border-Gavaskar Trophy and that will be his real Test. If he really wants to be considered as one of the greats of Indian cricket in years to come, then it will be important for him to deliver in overseas tours, and he can start with some important knocks in Australia. He may enjoy the pace of the pitches there as the ball will come to bat nicely, however at the same time he needs to adjust with the bounce of the pitches quickly to score consistently against a very good pace bowling attack.
The young Jaiswal has a very good stat to his international career and he can establish himself in all three formats and move to the next phase of his career in next 12-18 months will be fascinating to see and will play a key role in the success of Indian cricket team during this period.
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