Let Yashasvi Jaiswal play and don't overhype him - Gautam Gambhir's strict message to fans

Former India National Cricket Team opening batsman Gautam Gambhir has given a strict message to Indian cricket fans while showering praise on the young left-handed opening batsman Yashasvi Jaiswal for his stupendous batting performance in the second Test of the five-match series against Ben Stokes-led England National Cricket Team.

Jaiswal played a wonderful knock in the first innings of the second Test against England. He looked a class apart and slammed a magnificent double century at the Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium, Visakhapatnam. His innings was quite special as he was the sole reason behind India managing to put up a gigantic total of 396 on the board in the first innings.

Yashasvi Jaiswal smashed outstanding 209 runs off 290 balls and his innings consisted of 19 fours and 7 sixes. Other than Jaiswal no India batter was able to touch the 40-run mark in the match.

Yashasvi Jaiswal also broke a number of iconic records with his outstanding innings against the Three Lions and entered his name in the records. He became the third youngest Indian to make a men’s Test double hundred after Vinod Kambli and legendary batsman Sunil Gavaskar. 

Several former cricketers came forward to praise the young batter for his innings and congratulate him for smashing a double ton. One of those former cricketer was Gautam Gambhir.

Gambhir urged fans not to overhype the achievements of Yashasvi Jaiswal as it would put unnecessary pressure on the youngster.

“I want to congratulate the youngster for his achievement but, more importantly, I want to tell everyone that let the young man play. We have seen in the past that in India we have a habit, especially the media, to overhype their achievements and give them tags and make them look like heroes,” Gambhir told PTI during an interaction.

Let him grow and enjoy his cricket – Gautam Gambhir on Yashasvi Jaiswal

Gautam Gambhir added that the pressure tends to get better of the players when they are overhyped by the media and fans.

“The pressure of expectation gets the better of them and the players are not able to play their natural game. Let him grow and enjoy his cricket,” added Gambhir.

On one hand, Jaiswal has been consistently delivering astonishing performances in international cricket in whatever opportunity he is getting, on the other hand, two of India’s most promising batters – Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer – have failed miserably to score big runs for the side.

Both Gill and Iyer have struggled to score runs in the purest format of cricket and they might be dropped from the team once Virat Kohli and KL Rahul make their comeback.

Talking about the struggling batsmen, Gambhir stated that they need to be given time as they are quality batters and have delivered good performances in the past. Other than the return of Kohli and Rahul, Sarfaraz Khan is also waiting in the wings to get a chance in the Test team.

“We should give them time as they are quality players, and they have shown it in the past with their performance. That is why they are playing for India,” Gambhir said.