Jaiswal keeps feet on ground after India call-up

Mumbai, June 24

For Yashasvi Jaiswal, who got his maiden call-up in the Indian Test side on Friday when the BCCI announced the squad for the upcoming two-Test series in the West Indies, it was the culmination of a journey he had embarked on almost a decade ago.

Having left his home in Bhadohi, Uttar Pradesh, and spending early teenage years under a tent at the Azad Maidan here while putting in the hard yards under his coach Jwala Singh, an India cap was all the 21-year-old batting prodigy aspired for.

When the news of his selection finally arrived on Friday, the stylish southpaw was as elated as one can be. A dream had turned into reality after putting in splendid performances across formats in domestic cricket as well as in the IPL, in which he had scored 625 runs with an average of 48.08 and a strike-rate of 163.61.

“My father started crying (when he got to know),” said Jaiswal, adding that he would head to the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bangalore soon to prepare for the Windies tour.

Jaiswal, who was among the reserve players for the World Test Championship final earlier this month, said he was nervous until he saw his name in the squad announced by BCCI.

“I was a little nervous, till the time you do not get to know that your name is there in the team, there are butterflies. But it is a good feeling. My preparations have been going good and I got to interact a lot with the senior players. The conversation has been very simple to focus on my work. I learned from them that in the end ‘it is all about you, how you take it going forward’,” said Jaiswal, adding that he has interacted a lot with Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane.

Jaiswal said India coach Rahul Dravid’s message to him was to keep doing things that work for him.

“It has just been about keeping my focus on the right things and keep doing what I have been doing all this while. I have to keep things simple and maintain discipline, these are very easy things to say but are really important (in application),” Jaiswal said.

Singh was an elated man too. “I picked him in 2013 from the Azad Maidan with the single mission of making him an India cricketer, which was my dream. I really feel proud of myself, for what I embarked to do 10 years ago, it came to fruition today,” Singh said.