A fuming Yashasvi Jaiswal refused to leave the field after a disastrous mix-up with captain Shubman Gill resulted in his run-out very early on Day 2 of the second Test against the West Indies in Delhi.
Jaiswal could only add two runs to his overnight score of 173 before disaster struck as early as the eighth ball of the day. It was a fuller length delivery from Jayden Seales, angling away, Jaiswal put a good stride forward as he had done right throughout his innings and punched it straight to the mid-off fielder. For some reason, he felt there was a sure-shot single and set off like a bullet train with no brakes. Gill didn’t and that’s where the problem began.
To be fair to the Indian captain, he never showed interest in that single. He immediately looked back and decided against it. But Jaiswal was so adamant that it was almost impossible for him to get back on time once Gill refused to oblige his call. Tagenarine Chanderpaul got to the ball quickly and released it quickly. West Indies keeper Tevin Imlach made a desperate dash to the stumps, gathered it cleanly, but just as he was about to whip the bails, the ball almost popped out of his hands.
Jaiswal was stunned. He slammed his forehead and flung his hand, almost telling Gill that there was a single and it was his call. Gill, as stunned as anyone, just gave Jaiswal a blank look, who had a lot to say. Amid all this, the young Indian opener almost forgot that he was out. He didn’t move an inch and continued to show dissent.
Perhaps he thought that the decision was referred to third umpire but on-field umpire Richard Illingworth, who was standing at squareleg, asked him to move towards the pavillion as he had already raised his finger.
Replays showed that the decision was way closer than it first appeared and the umpire would have been better off sending it upstairs. A shellshocked Jaiswal finally made his way back to the pavilion only to see the close replay and have another round of conversation with vice-captain Ravindra Jadeja.
It was a disaster if you were Jaiswal. He got 175, alright, but he and almost everyone watching the Test knew that a double century was up for grabs. Former India captain Anil Kumble, in fact, predicted a triple century for the 23-year-old. But it wasn’t to be.
This, however, takes nothing away from the superlative knock that Jaiswal played. He batted the entire first day of this Test, getting to his seventh Test century, equalling Graeme Smith’s record for most centuries as an opening batter before turning 24.
Jaiswal also matched Virat Kohli’s unique feat of scoring more than 150 runs twice on Day 1 of a Test match in India.
Another interesting fact about Jaiswal’s marathon knock was that he did not hit a single six, which is generally the norm when the left-hander goes on to get a big score. Jaiswal, however, smashed 22 boundaries.