Jurel, Jaiswal: Do comparisons with legends add to pressure on them?

More than two days after the legendary Sunil Gavaskar drawing a comparison between debutant Dhruv Jurel and Mahendra Singh Dhoni, it’s still making waves on social media. With good reasons, as the young keeper-batter followed up his gamechanging effort of 90 with another calm partnership with Shubman Gill in the second innings to take India home and win his first Player of the Match in only the second Test.

If one follows Gavaskar’s statement closely, while he says there will ‘never be another Dhoni,’ he gushes: ‘’Of course, he (Jurel) batted well, but his keeping, his work behind the stumps has been equally brilliant. Just by looking at his game-awareness, I want to say that he is another MS Dhoni in the making. I know there can never be another MSD; but you know, the presence of mind that he has. MSD also, when he started, it was that: and Jurel has that game-awareness, street-smart cricketer.’’

Words from the Little Master that could well turn out to be prophetic, but they can certainly invite pressure on the young professional cricketer who has just started his journey. It’s so typical of the hyperbole that India’s TV pundits often resort to in showering praise on the newcomers – possibly getting carried away by the occasion. The other performer who has to live with this for quite sometime to come is Yashasvi Jaiswal, who at 22, had been simply unstoppable in this series.

In a recent interview, Jwala Singh, the childhood coach-cum-mentor of Yashasvi termed him as a ‘combination of Sourav Ganguly and Virender Sehwag.’ Granted that there could be shades of Ganguly’s sense of timing in hitting those towering sixes or Sehwag’s aggression to punish the loose delivery even as a Test opener, but a longtime coach possibly has to be even more restrained in his early assessment of his ward.

It would be relevant to resort to what captain Rohit Sharma had to say about Yashasvi after his back-to-back double centuries and the Rajkot win. ‘’Jaiswal…I won’t say anything about Jaiswal. Everyone is talking about him. Let him play. He is playing well, it’s good for us and he is in good form. I am not going to say much more than that. Itna bas hai abhi ke liye (this should be enough for now.),’’ Rohit said, being protective about someone who is very much the next big thing in Indian batting line-up after Gill.

As someone who has seen both sides of the coin in an international career spanning over 16 years now, Rohit certainly knows that it’s easy to get carried away. The hype around the debut of Sarfaraz Khan in Rajkot was quite unbelievable as it made for a great human interest story while he looked completely at ease in picking up half-centuries in either innings. Less than a week later when Sarfraz failed in both innings in Ranchi (14 & 0), the inevitable trolls have started trickling in.

The trappings of the modern game, whose landscape has changed ever since the IPL, means the cricketers have to fight all forms of distractions and know quite well it’s the performance that counts. Speaking to National Herald recently on Yashasvi’s own mechanism for coping with pressure, coach Jwala said: ‘’Though he is so young, he has already spent four seasons in the IPL environment where there are more distractions than the international arena. However, he is an extremely driven kid and will always have his feet on the ground.’’

The pressure of expectations, as we know, is already unreal for the upcoming Indian cricketer. Only hopes that comparisons with greats don’t add to it further!