Before the day 2’s play began between England and India at Edgbaston, former Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara was seen having a chat with his Rajasthan Royals (RR) boys in Yashashvi Jaiswal and Dhruv Jurel. During the convo, Jaiswal was seen jumping up and down at something Sangakkara said.
Notably, Sangakkara was the head coach of RR franchise in IPL 2024 and is now the director of cricket for the team across leagues.
During their brief talk close to the boundary ropes, Jaiswal abruptly jumped with joy, clearly excited by something Sangakkara had said, and put his arms around the seasoned cricket player in an unplanned embrace.
Sangakkara grinned broadly as he returned the hug, obviously taking pleasure in the child's contagious enthusiasm. Standing close by, Dhruv Jurel couldn't help but laugh at the impromptu gesture, highlighting Jaiswal's mischievous nature.
Here is the video:
Sangakkara described how close Jaiswal was to Joe Root during the English batter's time with the Royals and how he would bombard Root with questions about everything from cricket to life while analyzing Jaiswal's technique on Sky Sports with Michael Atherton.
"We had Joe Root at Rajasthan Royals, and we used to call Jaiswal 'Joeswal' because he never left Joe's side, and Rooty was soaking up everything. They weren't talking just T20; they were talking about everything—cricket and life—and he would sit right next to Joe for about four hours every night, just pestering him with questions or sitting open-mouthed listening to Rooty.
Rooty was absolutely brilliant in our environment, and he's learned so much, and that's another aspect of Jaiswal. He's a fast learner, and he wants to learn,” Sangakkara said on Sky Sports.
When Michael Atherton asked Sangakkara about how good the 23-year-old is, the former Sri Lanka captain replied: "The easiest way to do it is to look at his numbers, and they're incredible. Any young cricketer with this as their foundation—you know that he's incredibly good, not just technically but temperament-wise, and he has an appetite that separates him from other young cricketers of the same age.
He's got a debut hundred, he's the third youngest, I think, after Vinod Kambli and Sir Don Bradman, to have two double hundreds to his name. He's hungry to score runs away, bats in all conditions, so he's extremely, extremely good at the moment.
I've known Yashasvi Jaiswal for close to five years now. I saw him as a young kid at Rajasthan Royals, and then we got to know him. I think he's just going to get better. I think he's got the resilience to withstand a lot of the challenges that come his way in international cricket, take the rise and then the bumps and the falls along the way in his stride, and he's extremely driven and motivated, so he's going to be even better."
