Yashasvi Jaiswal batted like the starboy he is in the first Test between India and West Indies with an indomitable performance that also saw him named the Player of the Match. The 21-year-old marked his Test debut with a brilliant century and went on to score 171 runs in his first international match for the team.
13,700 kilometres away in Thane, his family were moving into their new five-bedroom flat, and his father was on Kanwar Yatra, travelling on foot from Uttar Pradesh to Uttarakhand.
This is the perfect beginning of Jaiswal's fairytale story, the prologue of which includes spending nights in tents, climbing trees to watch IPL games, and even selling panipuris.
Speaking to The Indian Express, his brother Tejsvi said: “He kept telling us, ‘please shift soon, I don’t want to stay in this house’. Even during the Test match, he would ask about our shifting plans. All his life, he had just one wish, to have his own house. You know how he has come up, he understands the importance of a roof over his head, especially in Mumbai.”
Jaiswal's performance in Dominica is the perfect way to continue his perfect run of form. He scored 1,845 runs in 15 first-class matches at a spectacular average of 80.21, including nine hundreds and two half-centuries.
He brought this form into the game against West Indies. With the team needing 271 runs to take the lead but seven wickets by Ravichandran Ashwin bundled them for 130 runs in the second innings. However, the hero with the bat on his Test debut was Yashasvi Jaiswal.
Jaiswal scored 171 runs before edging one off Alzarri Joseph's bowling, bringing an end to a spectacular innings. He took 387 balls to score 171 runs and his innings was studded with 16 fours and one six, the third-highest by an Indian on Test debut. He did miss out on reaching the 187 that Shikhar Dhawan hit on his Test debut, but that does not take anything from their performance.
And for his family, scoring the ton was the best way to make up for all the hard work that he had put in. “It was a proud moment for us, he has been working hard for this for so long. My father has gone for Kanwar Yatra and had prayed for Yashasvi. My brother is the quiet one in the family, he is too focused on his game,” said Tejsvi.
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