Yashasvi Jaiswal’s career challenges predicted by Allan Border, ‘Will take a while for…’

Yashasvi Jaiswal is the talk of the town wherever he goes and regardless of the format he plays in. The 22-year-old has made a dream start to all facets of his senior career, whether it be in Test cricket, T20Is or in the IPL. While he hasn’t been able to fire consistently in India’s ongoing tour of Australia, Jaiswal’s masterful 161 in Perth in what was just his second knock in the country in international cricket showed what he is capable of doing on his day.

Australia great Allan Border, one-half of the names on the Border-Gavaskar Trophy that the two teams are playing for in this five-Test series, said that Jaiswal is a “tough kid” who will have his bad patches but it will be all about how he bounces back from them. “I like the backstory,” Border said on TOI about Jaiswal’s inspirational life journey. “We’re talking about a really tough kid here. For him, with his struggles, to get to the Test team of a country with 1.2 billion people, it’s unbelievable. He’s got incredible talent, obviously that’s come through,” said the 1987 World Cup-winning former Australia captain.

‘He’ll have his moments because he is new’

Border further said that Jaiswal has the advantage of still being a largely unknown quantity. The upcoming Boxing Day Test will just be the 18th of his career. “He’ll have his moments because he’s new. People haven’t seen much of him. It’ll take a while for bowlers to start working him out. He’s going to be the sort of player who might go through a little (bad) patch, then work himself out and come back a better player. I think he’s very good,” Border said.

Jaiswal has scored a whopping 1600 runs in just 32 Test innings at an average of 53.33 with four centuries and eight half-centuries. Three of those centuries have come this year alone and the 161 in Perth was the lowest score of them all, with the other two being double hundreds. Jaiswal is also a dangerous T20 batter, having scored 2978 runs in 104 T20s at a strike rate of 150.25 with three centuries and 17 half-centuries. In T20 internationals, Jaiswal has scored 723 runs in 23 matches at a strike rate of 164.31 with one century and five half-centuries. The opener is yet to make his ODI debut but has an impressive record in List A cricket, having scored 1511 runs in 32 matches at an average of 53.96 with five centuries and seven half-centuries.