There were a couple of questions that made Yashasvi Jaiswal smile and indulge in some friendly chat with the media. First he was asked about the cramps in his arms and if it had something to do with his obsession for training hard and spending extra time at the nets on match eve. Later he was asked why there were so few runs on the leg side. His answers were amusing. “Next time I will not train this hard” and “Next innings I will keep that in mind and score more on the leg-side”.
Jaiswal at the press conference gave an idea about the mood in the Indian dressing room. After the pre-series stress of the start of a new era, the burden of filling the two giant thrones left behind in the dressing by Virat ‘King’ Kohli and Rohit ‘Mumbai ka raja’ Sharma, the cloud of tension would have lifted.
The two premier batsmen of the team — opener Jaiswal and skipper Shubman Gill — had scored hundreds. The senior pro KL Rahul had just missed a deserving 50 by 8 runs, and Rishabh Pant had been the usual Pant, the Test batsman that the world loves to see. His 65 would have stretched the smiles in the final session.
Jaiswal was happy about everything on Friday at Headingley. He said he was happy with his preparation, the atmosphere at the ground and enjoyed playing with skipper Shubman and also under him. “We had great camaraderie while playing together. We told each other to play session by session but hit the loose balls. I like playing with him and under him,” he said.
There was a bit of thanks reserved for the coach Gautam Gambhir too. “I had a chat with him during our practice session and the team management allows us to express ourselves on the field,” he said. About the challenges he said that while he was cramping his thought was to look at the field placements and read the tactics of the rival. Everything fell in place for Jaiswal and India.
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