Yashasvi Jaiswal slammed his maiden ODI ton in the third ODI against South Africa in Visakhapatnam earlier this year. Jaiswal recalled the conversations he had with Virat Kohli after he scored his ton. The southpaw recalled how Kohli sang a popular Bollywood dance number and started dancing.
“There is a song called ‘Lagan Lag Gayi Re’. So Kohli was singing that song to me and dancing. That was a fun conversation. Even before I went to bat, he was telling me things. His sense of humour is great, and he is very funny. But when he is serious, the entire world knows the level of intensity with which he plays. I really enjoy playing with him,” he said on sports journalist Vimal Kumar’s YouTube channel.
“When I was going to play U-19 India, Sachin sir had called me home. I spoke a lot to him. I was very nervous when I went to his home for the first time.”
Speaking about Rahul Dravid, the coach Jaiswal said, “Rahul sir is an amazing human being and an amazing coach. He is very humble and teaches us a lot. Even now, I keep talking to him consistently. He is a gem of a person. He always gives us freedom and is helpful in general, not just in cricket. He always says it does not matter how many games you play, but what you learn from them is very important,” he said.
Jaiswal, after the ton, is now the sixth Indian to have scored centuries in all formats of men’s cricket and the 32nd overall. The first player to do so was Suresh Raina, followed by Rohit Sharma, India’s stand-in captain KL Rahul, Virat Kohli and current full-time ODI captain Shubman Gill.
While he is a mainstay in the Indian Test team, Jaiswal has had to wait for his chances in ODIs despite having a prolific record in List A cricket. This is his sixth 50-over century and he had in 2019 become the youngest to score a double century in the format.
