Ranji Trophy: Yash Dhull back in business

New Delhi, February 17

“Sir, only if I work hard will I play elite cricket,” said Yash Dhull while describing how life changes after winning the U-19 World Cup, with a heady cocktail of fame, adulation, money and hangers-on capable of sending a young mind into a tailspin.

But today, at the Barsapara Stadium in Guwahati, Dhull started his journey among the men with a muscular hundred — 113 off 150 balls — against a good Tamil Nadu side on the opening day of the Ranji Trophy.

Dhull doesn’t have the swagger that West Delhi’s steely 18-year-old Virat Kohli had in 2008, nor the spunk which made St Stephen’s and Modern School (Barakhamba Road) alumnus Unmukt Chand the toast of the nation back in 2012. With his golden ear studs, Manjot Kalra had an appearance of a rockstar, but one look at Dhull and he would seem like a person happy to disappear in a crowd and then suddenly come out owning the stage, like it has always belonged to him.

Prepared

Today, the pull shots he played off Tamil Nadu pacers M Mohammed, Sandeep Warrier and P Saravana Kumar showed that he was well prepared. Anything short or wide was punished and he also used his feet well, stepping out time and again against spinners Ravisrinivasan Sai Kishore and Baba Aparajith. At 97, he got a reprieve and, as they say, fortune does favour the brave as he completed a ton on debut, just like another U-19 World Cup-winning captain, Prithvi Shaw. Coincidentally, the opponent is also the same — Tamil Nadu.

Is he the next big thing? Too early to say, but he does tick all the boxes when it comes to First-Class cricket and the transition seemed seamless.

In the last two weeks, the 19-year-old hardly got any time to comprehend how life has taken a complete 180-degree turn. Before he could be hounded for that 100th sound bite or requested for selfie No. 100, he was on his fifth flight in 72 hours — with the Delhi senior team.

He had travelled from Antigua to Ahmedabad for a BCCI felicitation and the next morning, he was back in Delhi where his school Bal Bhavan wanted him to show up. He went home, had a shower and the next thing he knew, he was in Guwahati. Just to add to the degree of difficulty, he was selected for India U-19 even before the BCCI’s U-19 red- ball tournament Cooch Behar Trophy had started. So, he hadn’t played any red-ball cricket.

“We had two options. Either we bench the kid or we play him wherever a slot is available. We needed an opener and he was told he needs to open. He is not an opener but immediately agreed. These are also the traits that you look in a cricketer,” Delhi selector Chetanya Nanda said about Dhull’s rise. He also spoke about how there was a bit of a debate whether Dhull should be fast-tracked into the team as an opener. “Our president Rohan Jaitley also supported us when there was a slight opposition as to draft him as a specialist opener,” Nanda informed. —