Agarwal packs & moves two tons Ashwin, Jadeja add to battered Proteas’ agony
Opener converts his maiden Test hundred into a double in India’s 502-run 1st inns; SA 39/3 at stumps
VISAKHAPATNAM: Had Prithvi Shaw not landed awkwardly on his left ankle during that warm-up match against Cricket Australia XI, Mayank Agarwal’s wait to make his Test debut would have been even longer. Shaw’s injury induced what even becoming the only Indian to score 2000-plus runs in one domestic season couldn’t – a Test debut.
Three months shy of his 28th birthday, Agarwal finally got to play for his country, in the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne, and he marked the occasion with 76 runs in the first innings and there has been no looking back since. Still, despite having notched three fifties in his short career, the wait for a three-figure score was starting to grow, which Agarwal ended in some style in Visakhapatnam on Thursday.
Not only did the opener from Karnataka bring up his first Test century against South Africa before lunch on Day Two (having resumed on an overnight score of 84), he went on to, rather majestically, convert that hundred into a double hundred in the following session. When he was dismissed, shortly before tea, his 215-run essay was the third highest score on a maiden hundred by an Indian, after Karun Nair and Vinod Kambli.
On Thursday, he put on a show of complete authority, a chanceless knock played with a straight bat and impeccable timing. For those who have seen Agarwal come into his own in the domestic grind, such maturity and discipline was always expected of him. Just ask Irfan Sait, Agarwal’s first coach.
“He came to me as a 14-year old, and just a few days before he was to play his first league game, he ran into a pole during a fielding session and got a deep cut just below his eye,” says Sait. “We thought he will miss a couple of games but he returned immediately, even though the doctors had advised him not to. With a bandage under his eye, he scored a century.”
Soon, he was an India Under-19 player and not long after, he was a permanent member of the Karnataka first-class side. But unlike his fellow age-groupers like Nair and KL Rahul, the India call-up eluded him. And it must have hurt most after the 2017-18 season, where he scored 1160 runs in the Ranji Trophy and 723 runs in the Vijay Hazare Trophy. Across all formats he scored 2141 runs that season.
On Thursday, when asked about that season in the press conference in Vizag, Agarwal attributed his stamina to his physical training. “Long distance running has helped me. When I was training before that season, we made sure we bat for five to six hours,” he said.
“We would have two and half hour sessions take a little break and then bat again. So it is just about preparing in that manner, preparing for those long hours. Combined with long distance running it has helped me.”
Yet, despite the mountain of runs, the national selectors did not dial his phone.
And when the big moment arrived, during West Indies’ India tour of 2018, Agarwal got to warm the India bench, from where he watched a much younger Shaw score a hundred on debut and also walk away with the Man of the Series award. He wasn’t originally picked for the subsequent tour of Australia, but following Shaw’s injury and Agarwal’s impressive tally of 195 runs (at an average of 65) in India’s historic series win Down Under, the team management must have known that they had found themselves an opener with mettle.
“Luck has played a role not once but two times for him in Australia,” says Sait. “Long back, in his first match for the India Under-19 team, he was bowled off the first delivery in Hobart. Luckily, the bails did not come off and he went on to score 161.”
That story should also tell you that once Agarwal is set, he goes on to score big runs -- daddy hundreds, or, like on Thursday, double hundreds. When he was just 14 or 15, he scored a double hundred in a private T20 tournament. The journalists wouldn’t believe that a kid as young as him could get a double in a T20 and thought the 30-yard circle must’ve been the boundary,” says Sait. “I told them that there were 150 players in that tournament and Agarwal was the only one to get a hundred, let alone a double.”
When Agarwal brought up his Test double hundred today, Sunil Gavaskar credited the batsman’s temperament on-air. “It is about the mental space that he is in which has helped him gain in confidence. It’s the (same) thing that KL Rahul is lacking,” said Gavaskar.
PRACTICE, PERFECT
A self-confessed Virender Sehwag fan, Agarwal too was often criticised for playing one too many shots at the start of his innings and getting out cheaply. But luckily for him, he fast realised that he could stay on the selector’s radar only if he could score big consistently.
“When he was getting out early for Karnataka, the amount of practice he did was impressive,” says Sait. “He is obsessed about perfection. He puts in hours and hours of practice perfecting his technique.
“All those hours of toiling away in the nets, in the Ranji Trophy, in Vijay Hazare, in Syed Mushtaq Ali has only made him very strong mentally,” adds Sait. “He got his chance late but he is more than making it count now.”
VVS Laxman perhaps summed it up best when he, seated in the broadcaster’s studio, said that Agarwal is now the poster-boy for not-giving-up. “For players like Priyank Panchal and Abhimnayu Easwran, who are scoring tons of runs in domestic cricket and yet not getting a chance in the Indian team, Mayank is a great example to follow,” said Laxman.
For a player who is featuring in just his fifth Test match, it is a great compliment. But Agarwal’s smile, as he walked back to the pavilion, revealed that he had earned it, with a whole lot of perseverance and a little bit of luck. VISAKHAPATNAM: The dropped chance of Rohit Sharma in the fifth over of Day 2 was an indicator of things to come. Vernon Philander’s length ball had got an outside edge off the Indian opener but Quinton de Kock could not hold on to it. Sharma was batting on 125 then, with his opening partner Mayank Agarwal on 90. The visitors, unsurprisingly, paid dearly. The two Indian openers flourished in each other’s presence on the flat wicket.
If Sharma’s century in his debut match as a Test opener was the single point focus of Day 1’s narrative, Day 2 belonged to Agarwal’s perfectly calibrated double ton (215, 371b). The two were involved in a 317-run stand, the third highest opening partnership ever for India. It was also the highest stand ever by an Indian pair against South Africa.
The Proteas did strike in the post lunch sessions as India tried to accelerate the scoring, declaring on 502/7.
Those strikes did nothing to boost the visitors’ confidence; South Africa crumbled to 39 for three at stumps, succumbing to R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja on a deteriorating pitch.
But before that last hour hustle, it was all about a powerpacked display by Sharma and Agarwal, much to the growing despair of the South Africans.
Playing with a straight bat, Agarwal had looked assured on Day 1, and was equally unfazed on Day 2. It did not take him long to convert his overnight score of 84 into his maiden ton. In the 10th over of the day, he pushed Keshav Maharaj towards third man for a single to reach the mark. It was the first time since 2009 (Phil Hughes and Simon Katich for Australia) that both batsmen of an opening pair reached the century mark against South Africa.
Sharma and Agarwal complemented each other. Even as the former went after Maharaj, the latter kept his calm and played the perfect ally, simply digging in further. Once that was done, the reverse sweeps came in, as well as the smashes over midwicket against the spinners. “Risk free” runs, said Agarwal.
“When I played the reverse sweep, the thing we were talking about was that I don’t really reverse sweep. It was good that we were able to manipulate the field,” Agarwal said.
Even when Agarwal stepped out to and lofted the likes of Dane Piedt and Senuran Muthusamy over the boundary, there was no hint of risk. Though Sharma was stumped while on 176—beaten by the flight and turn from Maharaj—and Cheteshwar Pujara was bowled by Philander in the first ball after lunch, Agarwal remained steady at the other end.
Virat Kohli joined him and India cruised. When Kohli was caught and bowled by Muthusamy, Agarwal carried on. He had taken 203 balls to complete the first 100 runs but needed only 155 balls to complete the next. When he reached the mark with a two off Maharaj, there was elation as he raised his arms and soaked in the afternoon sun.
SPINNERS STRIKE
It was now the Indian spinners’ turn to take over. Ashwin started the onslaught as he beat Markram’s forward defence to bowl him in the eighth over. He struck again in the 17th over; this time Theunis de Bruyn went to reach for a wide delivery and got stumped by Wriddhiman Saha. Two comeback men combining to great effect—ashwin last played for India in December 2018, and Saha in January 2018. South Africa only have more devastation to look forward to.