How bright can Yashasvi Jaiswal's star burn?

At one end, there was nothing but light. At the other end, darkness. KL Rahul’s career is covered by a permacloud of fan disappointment. While he played an equal role in the partnership that set up India to win this match, he is in the shadow of Yashasvi Jaiswal. He will not be the only one. 

I have said that Jaiswal is a ten-year player, a future great, and maybe the world’s best batter in five years. His fans have told me I don’t rate him. Those are the heights his career is going for.

Think about what he accomplished in this Test. He made a duck in the first innings, as his familiar offside problems were exposed early. In the second innings, he makes the eighth-highest score after a duck in the first innings. 

When he shines, it is as bright as anything in cricket. 

We got an unusual question on our Morning Glory show at lunch on the live channel from Conrad McBad.

I don’t really know what the ideal build of a batter is. But long legs, short torso and limited wingspan do make sense, right? It means your hand-eye coordination is not compromised, and you also have the long legs for footwork. 

You look at Jaiswal, and you see this incredibly short-looking torso, or he’s high-waisting it. His legs look long, and his arms feel shorter. That might be an optical illusion, because his arm guard always seems so massive. But let’s say all this does matter. If if it does, we can at least infer that Conrad might be right—Jaiswal is actually made for batting. 

But he is not yet fully complete. He has his quirks. Bowl around the wicket to him and it’s a waste of your life. You’re just picking the ball up from the boundary. Bowl over the wicket, in the right area, and teams still have a fighting chance. 

Most teams realise that he has an issue outside off stump. I spent a long time on NVPlay, and it’s a weird zone that he has trouble with. There is also a thought about him and getting tucked up around his hip. But it’s somewhere around the seventh stump, usually slightly back of a length. Jimmy Anderson really focused on this and got a lot of plays and misses, but few wickets. 

But you can see in Tests so far, he is being dismissed when it is wide. Today’s dismissal was from a Mitch Marsh half-tracker that was wide and smashed but straight to a fielder.  It was an extreme version of a lot of issues he is having. 

And while the line is important here, so is length. Jaiswal’s averages by this are very weird. He’s alright when the ball is overpitched, but most players of his level punish this. But he’s great against balls on a length, which is where all players really struggle. He hasn’t had much trouble against the short ball, but back of a length is an issue he will work on. 

I think part of the issue is because he loves playing on the back foot, which always a good thing for a Test batter. His strike rate is really high when he does it. But it’s something bowlers will understand. You can get him out, but he might get away quickly. 

Once Jaiswal is set, he is a different beast. You look at the start of his first-class career and you see two hundreds early on. 103 and an even ton. He made his landmark, and then off he popped. Since then, he has eleven triple-figure scores, none are less than 144. He doesn’t make hundreds, he makes daddy hundreds. 

Was this him listening to a coach, or just working it out in real time? But he has no time for hundreds, only massive scores. He is the king of the Every Run Matters club. 

This is a niche stat, especially for someone so early in his career. But so far, he has the highest median score of any player when making Test hundreds. What is more amazing about that is his first-class strike rate is 67. He is playing shots, but not getting out even past milestones.

His strike rate on attacking shots is 278, so he really goes for it and still has a high average. But that is not what he is best at. Jaiswal is almost never out when rotating the strike. It’s a subjective measure, but depending on where you look, he averages between 100 to 200 doing this. 

The other openers of his era are nothing like him. They struggle to turn over the strike, he does it without thinking. It is probably why Rohit looks at his attacking shots sometimes and shakes his head. Because Rohit—or any player—would dream to be able to rotate strike like Jaiswal. Often, attacking shots in Tests are from poor balls or to relieve the pressure. Jaiswal doesn’t need the second option much, if ever.

I said that I didn’t want Jaiswal to make too many runs in the home season. This overhype of players and then slaughtering them when they show any human frailties is getting too common. 

But the truth is, Jaiswal is impossible to overhype. Like I said, he might be the best bat in the world in five years. But if he keeps batting like this, it could be sooner. His floor would seemingly be a top Indian batter already. His ceiling is too silly to mention. 

Jaiswal is still in progress, and he averages 56 in Tests and 65 in first-class. His next nine matches are in Australia and England; he has a pink ball to dance with next. 

His batting is incredibly good already, and he’s nowhere near his peak in terms of age. Is he just having a golden start before teams work him out? Or is it possible he gets even better, and then even the overhype will be underwhelming? 

Yashasvi Jaiswal already casts a huge shadow, and it feels like he has barely begun. The question now is how bright his star can burn.