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Indian cricketer Yashasvi Jaiswal in action. (FILE photo)
Calling Hardik Pandya bold and Shubman Gill the “most hardworking”, Yashasvi Jaiswal drew parallels with Bollywood films for his teammates. Invited for the TV channel Sports Today’s ‘Aajtak Agenda’ (ATA) live talk show in Delhi, Jaiswal was asked who he associated with certain film names.
The most hardworking? (mehenati) Jaiswal picked his captain Shubman Gill. “Shubman is the hardest worker. For his consistent routines, diet, skills, running and his training is unbelievable,” he said.
For Dhurandhar, famous for its long-haired actors, he picked Rohit Sharma.
His answer for Bahubali surprised the host the most. “Yuzi Bhai”, he said, referring to Yuzvendra Chahal. Prabhas is shown as a beefy warrior, but Jaiswal said it was because the legspinner was strong (“tagdey”) mentally.”
Saiyyara, which means an orbiting planet, but which the host thought means a star, was assigned by Jaiswal to Virat Kohli. The talk show host called him north star too.
The ‘Dabangg’ of the team as per Jaiswal, was Hardik Pandya. *Hardik is Diler, enjoys cricket a lot and plays with a dabangg (audacious) style.”
When asked to pick someone to frontline Yeh Jawani Hai deewani starting Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone, Jaiswalcracked up the audience by saying, “Me only! It’s my time to be youth.”
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Earlier in the interview, Jaiswal recalled how he had fulfilled a long time dream of scoring a ODI century for India. “It was always my deam to make India ODI century. I wanted to fully enjoy and savour the first ton,” he told ATA.
He also recalled how soon after his century in the SA ODI series, Kohli had urged him to celebrate it with a specific Bollywood song. “Virat paaji said you should dance like a filmstar on the song lagan lagan lagan lagi (a Sukhwinder earworm from Tere naam where Salman made famous the centre parting of straight hair for men). He said ‘Tu bhi kar,’ paaji’s sense of humour is brilliant, he picks on words quickly,” Jaiswal told ATA.
The India opener would also recall his brother’s sacrifice in prioritising Yashasvi’s cricket ahead of himself when he came to live in Mumbai. My father also told me to not stress – because we have a shop anyway. But I’m grateful to my brother, now he’s scored a century for Tripura in Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy. I like conversing with him because he understands me. We focus on fitness together and discuss diet and tell each other to not eat.”
There was also a heartwarming tale of when he would go to school. “Not often. I went only sometimes. But I really wanted to learn English. Someone told me I should listen to English, read books and newspapers so I would read from anything available,” he told ATA.
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