Mumbai opening batsman Yashasvi Jaiswal smashed his way into record books on Wednesday. At 17 years and 292 days, Yashasvi Jaiswal became the youngest in the world to score a double hundred in 50-overs cricket including List A and ODIs. He broke the record by almost 3 years in the Vijay Hazare Trophy match against Jharkhand. The youngest before Yashasvi was Alan Barrow, who scored a double ton at age of 20 years, 273 days in South Africa’s domestic cricket way back in 1975.
This was Yashasvi’s third hundred in the ongoing Vijay Hazare Trophy. Jaiswal, who made his List A debut in this tournament, already has 585 runs in only 5 matches and is also the leading run scorer of Vijay Hazare Trophy, taking over from Tamil Nadu’s Baba Aparajith.
Yashasvi’s double hundred came a few days after Kerala’s Sanju Samson became the fastest India to score a double century. Yashasvi became the 7th Indian to score a double century in List A cricket after Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Rohit Sharma (thrice), Shikhar Dhawan, KV Kaushal and Sanju Samson. Tendulkar, Sehwag and Rohit are however, the only Indians to hit double tons in ODIs. Shikhar Dhawan’s 248 came in a practice match against South Africa A in 2013.
This was only the third double century in the history of Vijay Hazare Trophy with all three of them coming in the last two seasons. The first to score a double hundred in Vijay Hazare Trophy was Uttarakhand’s KV Kaushal in 2018.
Yashasvi Jaiswal has been in fine form in the lead up to the tournament. He scored four half centuries for India U-19 in the tri-nation series against England and Bangladesh in England. He scored 294 runs in seven innings at an average of 42 and a strike rate of 74.05, finishing fourth on the run-scorers’ list.
Jaiswal, who was disturbed of not being able to convert his starts into hundreds had also revealed how suggestion from India opener Wasim Jaffer helped him turn it around.
“The problem of not converting my fifties into hundreds was affecting me. I was scoring 70s and 80s, and taking wickets too, but not scoring centuries and finishing off the match. Then I saw Wasim sir score a hundred there. I learnt a lot by just watching him bat. He batted till the end, taking singles and waiting for loose balls to hit the boundaries. After that match, he advised me about what shots I could play, and which were the areas where I could take a chance against the bowlers. I kept that chat with him in my mind,” Jaiswal was quoted as saying by Times of India.
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