U-19 World Cup: India prepare for class test before big exam

Coach U19 Rahul Dravid and Captain Ishan Kishan during the pre depature press conference at BCCI Office on Tuesday.
(Express photo by Kevin DSouza)

Crisp mornings, balmy afternoons and pleasant evenings; late January in Dhaka carries the same feel as early March in most of north India. But it’s not solely down to the weather. Like March, a time of the year when nervous teenagers are busy fervently revising their syllabi, the air here too is thick with similar urgency and anticipation. Growing up, Indian cricketers may not get to see much of books and schools, but occasionally a select few are exposed to some serious “exam pressure”. Beginning tomorrow’s match against Ireland, what a bunch of schoolboyish under-19 youngsters led by Ishan Kishan will face over the next couple of weeks is perhaps an equivalent of the Board exams, IIT JEE/AIIMS entrance test and a post degree job interview — all rolled into one and raised to the nth power. The success rate here is infinitesimal. And while they compete amongst themselves, they also have to back one another. For, in the eyes of the media and fans back home, individual grades won’t matter here much if the class of 2016 flunks as a unit.

Ahead of the first test then, the opener on Thursday, furious last-minute preparations are on at the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium in Mirpur. The team is practising on the BCB academy ground in the stadium’s backyard. At the main facility, expensive broadcast equipment is being unloaded and wires are being placed in the ground. All of India’s matches will be telecast live. Now while we are drawing this exam-cricket analogy, imagine a hall where your marks after every question are relayed to the whole wide world. Safe to assume that the scrutiny is going to be immense. It will be unlike anything previous junior India teams had to face. You’ve got to feel for this lot.

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At the nets, India’s captain Ishan has just finished batting. An attacking left-handed batsman, he practised uppish cuts and cover dives against pacers, and danced down the wicket and lofted the spinners straight back. He takes off his pads and helmets, wipes the sweat off his brow and runs his fingers through his hair several times. Appearance matters to him, as it would to any 17-year-old. He settles down in a chair by the nets, sips on a replenishment drink, and seems to be gazing vacantly, contemplating something. What must he be thinking? Could it be the strategy for tomorrow’s game? But captaincy at the under-19 stage is more of a ceremonial job, it doesn’t involve too much thinking, which is done by the management. Junior players often go on to play for national team, but age-group captains don’t become national teams’ skippers as often. It’s understandable because a team has but one captain as against eleven potential vacancies for players. Which could be one of the reasons why of all of India’s under-19 captains so far, only Virat Kohli got the top job. Is Ishan aware of this and is he thinking if he would become another Kohli, or another M Senthilnathan (1988)/Amit Pagnis (1998)/Ravikant Shukla (2006)/Ashok Menaria (2010)/Vijay Zol (2014)?

In Kohli’s image

His hairstyle and mannerism suggests he is more like Kohli than rest of the above. The opener has also given ample glimpses of temperament and flamboyant batting in his budding first-class career. He made fifty for Jharkhand on his Ranji debut in 2014. This season, on a vicious turner in Rajkot and against a rampaging spin attack led by Ravindra Jadeja, he scored 87 off 69 balls including eight sixes.

Besides cricket, he also hobnobs with the high and mighty of Bihar, posting his pictures with deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav, the state’s most famous cricketer of recent times. And Ishan has had a brush with controversy, too, when unverified reports came earlier this month that he was allegedly arrested for reckless driving in Patna. Sitting in his chair in Dhaka, he might also be thinking how that unforeseen event could have affected his under-19 World Cup dream?

But no. It turns out that he is preoccupied with his batting. The Patna-born Jharkhand player walks up to the avuncular figure of Rahul Dravid and discusses his technique with the legend. In Dravid, Ishan and other India under-19s have perhaps the best mentor they could have hoped for. They gather around Rahul sir as schoolboys would around a teacher for solutions to their last-minute problems. He lends a patient ear and a reassuring hand on the shoulders, guiding them as gently and sympathetically as Robin Williams helps out a troubled Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting. The way he is surrounded by young lads beholden to him, it evident that it’s Dravid who is this team’s real captain while also being the coach and their friend, philosopher and guide. He is also their best shield against the intense limelight they are going to be put under over the fortnight.

He tried to ease a bit of pressure by putting the tournament into perspective, with a typical forward defensive. “My message to them is to focus on actually improving, getting better, seeing this as an opportunity to learn and grow as a cricketer, to see this World Cup as another exposure they are getting at a very young age,” Dravid dead-batted at the pre-departure presser in Mumbai. “They are lucky to get this at a young age. That’s all I tell them about: it is just one step in their journey hopefully as cricketers.

“I always keep reminding them there are enough examples of people who go on to play India Under-19, but don’t go on to represent India. Conversely, there are very good examples of people who have played at this level and then actually gone on to represent India. The important thing is you have to go on from here, score runs in first-class cricket, score runs in List A games and then get the recognition from the selectors,” the former Indian captain said.

After Dravid, the guy who garners most attention in the team is Sarfaraz Khan. He is an ebullient character, a fun bloke to hang out with, but he is also in a way what most in the team want to be at this point: a young Indian Premier League star. His company seems to inspire them in the same way as Chris Gayle, AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli’s company inspires Sarfaraz. And with the IPL auction scheduled for February 6, this will be another date circled red in their diaries besides February 14 — the day of the final. With IPL scouts keeping an eye on the proceedings, this campus interview of sorts will also mean extra pressure.

In the larger scheme though, as Dravid says, the Under-19 World Cup is not the be all and end all of anything. “I will be happier if some of these guys go on and play for India. That should be their aim and real aspiration,” he said. The juniors, therefore, need to take it as another experience along the way. For the under-19 World Cup — like your Board exams and entrance tests — does make some careers, doesn’t mean end of the road for others.