Perth: In his free time, you will often find Yashasvi Jaiswal sitting by the riverfront near the team hotel in Perth. He goes off on a walk, sometimes alone, because few things calm him more than looking at the Swan river as it snakes its way through the city. Perhaps this is true of many players from Mumbai, all used to the presence of the Arabian Sea, but even among them, the left-hander stands out.

After getting dismissed for a duck in the first innings, there was no better way to simply take a deep breath and get his focus back. He had been caught driving on the up and copped some criticism for it as well.

But on Sunday, when he was finally dismissed — inexplicably cutting a short and wide delivery straight to point — after a marathon 161-run innings that lasted 297 balls, he walked off to a standing ovation as the crowd rose in unison. It is not an honour that the Australian crowd doles out with regularity but in this case, it was a thoroughly deserved one.

“This boy is special, he really is special,” said Indian legend Sunil Gavaskar on Star Sports. “Looking at where he’s come from and the way he’s been batting, the way he’s been handling fame, it’s not easy sometimes to handle fame. Against England, he scored more than 700 runs in five Test matches (with) two double hundreds earlier in the year. And he looks so hungry for runs, which is what you want as a batter. A lot of us were told, get a hundred. I think he says, “I want to get a 150 or 200”. He’s hungry for runs, and that’s exactly what Indian cricket needs.”

Bouncing back

Watching Jaiswal quickly get back on track after suffering a setback shouldn’t surprise anyone though. If anything, it has been a theme in his career. Each time the circumstances try and put him down, he finds a higher level. Importantly, he does that not by relying on his god given talent but instead, he puts his head down and works hard.

He knows what it is to be ignored because it can take a lot to keep your cricketing dream alive in Mumbai. At 10, he moved from the village of Suriyawan in Uttar Pradesh to Mumbai to play the game. The shift, however, wasn’t all that he thought it would be.

And it wasn’t until 2013, as he was turning 12, that Jwala Singh, of the Mumbai Cricket Club academy, decided to take him under his wing. The coach was looking for talent and he found a diamond in the rough. Given the opportunity, Jaiswal put his head down and worked hard. The runs started to come at a rapid pace in age-group cricket but the youngster wasn’t satisfied. He wanted more.

While playing U-14 cricket, he scored 319 runs and took 13 wickets in a single match while playing against Raja Shivaji Vidyamandir in the Giles Shield. Soon enough, the India junior selectors came calling.

Consistent performances saw him getting picked for India at the U-19 level. And in 2020, he was named Player-of-the-Tournament in the Under-19 World Cup in South Africa, helping him to win an IPL contract with Rajasthan Royals.

Hitting the gym

But when he first broke onto the scene after the Under-19 World Cup, he wasn’t strong enough for the brand of power-hitting that T20 cricket requires. So, he went back and hit the gym and worked on his body. The result is a physique that may not look much on television but presents a certain wiry strength when seen in person.

He, along with Rajasthan Royals’ Director of Cricket Zubin Bharucha, worked on his cricket too. After getting just three games in his first season, he got 10 next season. He was coming to terms with the big boys.

And then, he made his move. In the 2023 IPL season, he smashed 625 runs at a strike rate of 163.61. Now, the senior selectors came calling.

As if to show that he is so much more than just a T20 player, he scored 171 off 387 balls on debut in the West Indies. A tough tour of South Africa followed, and Jaiswal responded once again by bouncing back to score a staggering 712 runs against England.

Then head coach Rahul Dravid called for daddy hundreds and Jaiswal piled on two in the series — 209 in Visakhapatnam and 214* at Rajkot. As always, he found a way to hit a higher level.

Speaking in the presser after stumps, Jaiswal spoke about his mindset despite the failure in the first innings: “I was just playing as I prepared. I always trust in myself and believe that whatever is going to come, I am going to go, enjoy and be fearless. I will go and take a brave decision. This is my mindset. I always try to think what is required for my team and I will try and do that.”

He added: “I try to develop my own game by talking to senior players and understanding cricket and how I can bring certain things in my game. I always try to learn something. I still have a lot to learn.”

As it turned out, he wasn’t the only one who learned something on Sunday, many in Australia did too. India’s got a new star on the horizon and he’s just getting started. Bring on the standing ovations.

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