Yashasvi Jaiswal lived up to the billing the Australia media had given him ahead of the Border Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) opener in Perth. The ‘New King’ not just brought up his maiden century in Australia in his first match Down Under but also reached the milestone with the kind of bravado that fans associated with former opener Virender Sehwag.
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What also displayed 22-year-old Jaiswal’s tough character and mindset is the fact that he scored a century after being dismissed for a duck in the first innings.
Batting at 95 against Josh Hazlewood, Jaiswal played an upper-cut to a delivery banged in short by the Aussie pacer and connected it well enough to lift it over the wicket-keeper and slips to hit a six as the ball landed on the boundary cushions.
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Jaiswal’s courage to play the risky shot so close to his century reminded of Sehwag, who never used to hold back his aggressive-self closer to a landmark and invariably brought it up with a big hit.
Jaiswal resumed his innings on Sunday morning at 90 and his century came off the 205th ball he faced.
His big opening partnership with KL Rahul (77) ended at 201, after his opening partner was dismissed by Mitchell Starc.
It’s Jaiswal’s fourth hundred in his 15th Test, joining the likes of the legendary Sunil Gavaskar and Vinod Kamnali to score four Test centuries before turning 23.
He also matched the record of batting legend Sachin Tendulkar and Ravi Shastri to score three Test hundreds in a calendar year before turning 23.
At the time this report was published, Jaiswal was batting on 137 and Devdutt Padikkal on 17, with India’s score reading 255 for 1 — taking the visitors’ lead to 301 runs.
India were bowled out for 150 in their first innings and then dismissed Australia for 104, with stand-in skipper Jasprit Bumrah’s five-wicket haul leading the Indian attack.