Picture Credit: Twitter
The talented left-hand batter Yashasvi Jaiswal was under the limelight by leading the batting charts in the 2020 edition with 400 runs in six games of the U19 World Cup. Since then, he has been a revelation in terms of consistency to provide good starts to his teams, whether be it Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League (IPL) or the Mumbai state team in domestic cricket.
Although the southpaw did not feature in the first half of the Ranji Trophy 2022, he has been in sublime form in the knockouts. In the quarterfinals against Uttarakhand, the 20-year-old returned with knocks of 35 and 103 and was a key force behind the team’s historic victory by 725 runs.
In the ongoing semi-final game against Uttar Pradesh, Jaiswal scored another century in the first innings, which propelled Mumbai to score 393 on the board. Then, Uttar Pradesh was dismissed for a score of 180.
With a lead of 213 runs, Mumbai had a solid start with Prithvi Shaw scoring 64 off 71 balls. However, Jaiswal could not open his account until the first 53 balls of his innings, which was quite surprising for a player, who had scored a century in the first innings of the fixture.
He finally got off the mark in his 54th ball, with a nudge through square leg off Ankit Rajpoot which went for a boundary.
After his first run, Jaiswal waived the bat towards the dugout, after the squad members including Dhawal Kulkarni, Sarfaraz Khan, and coach Amol Mazumdar were witnessed smiling and cheering for the youngster.
Currently, Mumbai holds a very strong position with a lead of 330+ runs, with Jaiswal and Armaan Jaffer unbeaten at 34 and 23 respectively. The fixture will be played until June 18, which will give optimum time for the Mumbai bowlers to dismiss the Uttar Pradesh team and reach the final of Ranji Trophy.