Ravichandran Ashwin, India's senior spinner, praised young opener Yashasvi Jaiswal for having the skills in his arsenal to excel in every situation for the squad. However, Ashwin wants Jaiswal to experience both the highs and the lows to grow into the player he is now.
Jaiswal was the star of India’s Test series win over England at home. He scored 712 runs in 9 innings with two double-centuries and 4 fifties to his name. He averaged 89 and had a strike rate hovering around 80 as well.
Former England player, Michael Vaughan asked Ashwin about Jaiswal's recent success on Club Prairie Fire's YouTube channel. Ashwin said he thought it was funny how a young player who achieves success at the highest level is always pressured about his next big task by commentators and experts.
Vaughan joined the conversation about Yashasvi Jaiswal’s future performances, ahead of the upcoming Test series against Australia in November this year.
In response, R Ashwin gave an epic reply and mentioned that he finds it funny how young players face pressure before their big assignments, thanks to the “experts in India.”
"This is one part of the narrative that I genuinely laugh at. In India especially, you have lots of experts saying about someone who has sort of burst onto the scene. Hey, but hang on, let's wait and see how he performs in Australia, in South Africa, in England. I find it ridiculously funny because unless and until you want somebody to fail, you wouldn't say something like that. You're looking forward to somebody failing because that's the beauty of international cricket. It's the experience, right? And life is all about experiencing new things, and it is going to be challenging and that's the whole point of traveling somewhere and getting on top of it because at the end of the day, the attitude of a cricketer is to conquer everything. That's the attitude that gets you to the top," Ashwin said on Club Prairie Fire's YouTube channel.
"Somebody like Yashasvi is a natural-gifted ball-striker. He is somebody who, whatever he has touched, has turned into gold. But I am sure, down the line, he is going to get the opportunity to fail and also see what it takes to succeed. That's the wonderful nature of our great game. I think in Australia, or wherever it is, Yashasvi has the tools to be successful. But he is also going to go through the journey of learning something valuable. He will even have failures and he will learn the valuable lessons. I think he is going to be double the player than what he is right now,” Ashwin added.
Jaiswal is the highest run-getter in the ongoing WTC 2023-25 with 1028 runs in 16 innings.
"For me, it's too pre-mature to say how he will go there and what it is gonna look like when he goes there. But one thing is certain, he is going to learn some valuable experience. Whether he is going to score the same buckets of runs that he has been scoring, only time will tell. I really hope that he does, but even if he doesn't, those experiences are going to teach him valuable lessons which are going to be even more worthy for Indian cricket," Ashwin added.
Jaiswal and Ashwin are currently part of the Rajasthan Royals squad in IPL 2024.
