By: Bipin Dani

Feb. 5 (Daily Mirror) - The parents of Team India’s 22-yearold opener, Yashshvi Jaiswal, were glued in front of their TV set on Saturday morning. They didn’t want to miss a single ball on Saturday, when the second day’s play resumed.

The reason was understandable.

The left-hand batter was unbeaten on 179 runs at the end of the first day’s play against England in the
second Test match.

“We were certain about his double hundred,” the father, Bhupendra Jaiswal, who runs a hardware store
in Suriyawan, Bhadohi, in Uttar Pradesh, said.

“We have not travelled to Vishakhapatnam to watch the match from the ground. We did not go to Hyderabad either. The reason is that my son feels that if we are at the ground, he comes under pressure and is unable to perform. We, therefore, are not going to watch his international matches. Yes,
we do go to watch his performance in the IPL matches, and that too, many times, without his knowledge.”

Yashshawi’s mother, Kanchan, who is a housewife, was also “more than happy” to watch her son become the 3rd youngest Indian after Vinod Kambli (in 1994) and Sunil Gavaskar in 1971.

He is also in the company of MAK Pataudi and Sanjay Manjrekar, who all have double hundreds at the young age in Tests. There are a few more Indians having this feat in the World Test Championship.

Sadly, no other Indian player could even score 50 in the ongoing Test match.

Jaiswal’s rise in the field of cricket is as interesting as his innings.

At the age of ten, he came to Mumbai to receive cricket training at Azad Maidan. He had no one to care for in this metro city. He was initially given accommodation in a dairy shop in return for work, but was evicted by the shopkeeper as he was unable to work frequently. As a result, he lived in a tent with the groundsmen at the Maidan, where he was helping to sell panipuri to meet the expenses.

After living in tents for about three years, Jaiswal’s cricketing potential was spotted by Jwala Singh, who ran a cricket academy in Santacruz. He provided Jaisawal with a place to stay before becoming his legal guardian and obtaining his power of attorney from the parents.

After having gained a reputation in cricket, the coach doesn’t want his ward to be recognised as a panipuriwala, and rightly so.

Jaiswal has two sisters and one brother, and he is the youngest of the four of them. We heard that Yashasvi Jaiswal’s elder brother, Tejasvi Jaiswal, is also getting training for cricket in Delhi. His eldest sister is married, and the other sister is a teacher in Uttar Pradesh.