Dhruv Jurel: Nerveless and nimble while scoring 90; reassuring just like No. 7 wonder MS Dhoni | Cricket News
From the slips, Joe Root rushed to embrace him; from mid-on, Ben Stokes strolled to commiserate him. Even the fiery Ollie Robinson tapped his shoulder. The Ranchi crowd, 10,000-odd, stood up and applauded him. Dhruv Jurel, falling for a priceless 90, walked back gently, soaking in the applause, waving his bat to all corners of the ground, discontent that he missed his hundred but content that he had pulled his team out of trouble.A new hero has risen, in the land of one of its greatest heroes. Son of a Kargil war veteran, with a heart for battle himself.
Some fans waved the MS Dhoni-7 jersey at him. Some kept chanting the former captain and the homeboy’s name. Jurel needn’t be reminded that this was Dhoni’s hometown. He could not have but noticed the towering stands named after his idol; he couldn’t have but noticed the ubiquitous No. 7 jerseys in white, blue and yellow hues that have splashed the stands and that would have stared at him from the makeshift stalls on the sidewalks of the highway that leads to the stadium.
A feeling like no other! 👏😍
Dhruv Jurel raises his bat for 50 for the 1st time 💪 in #TeamIndia whites 🙌#INDvENG #BazBowled #IDFCFirstBankTestSeries #JioCinemaSports pic.twitter.com/nfi4xR4ETc
— JioCinema (@JioCinema) February 25, 2024
Dhoni was his idol—as he still is for a generation—and in his hometown, he produced a Dhoni-like knock in essence. In his nonchalance, in the cold assessment of the situation, in the raw calmness he exuded, in his serendipitous adaptability and problem-solving faculty, he bore irrepressible similarities with Dhoni. He is different to Dhoni as batsman—he is more compact and orthodox, the movements more fluent and in straight lines.
He walked out into a mess, as Dhoni has countless times. India were five down, 192 runs adrift of leveling England’s first-innings total, just Ravi Ashwin and the bowlers to follow him. The situation didn’t flinch him—he calmly absorbed the pressure in the first 11 eleven balls, before he lofted Shoaib Bashir over mid-on. That was his initial approach, until he was left with just the bowlers, whereupon he displayed mature aggression, which offered a wonderful insight into his batting. He wouldn’t wantonly attack, but do so only when he knew he could play his percentage strokes, the drives (he gloriously straight-drove Ollie Robinson), the pulls and slogs. Among India’s batsmen, he alone used dexterous feet. To disrupt Shoaib Bashir’s length, he stepped out and carved him over long-off. The off-spinner, who had sliced through India’s top-order, would pose significantly less trouble to him.
Calm, waiting
Unlike batsmen of his age who are often prone to—Jurel is only 23—he resed the urge of adrenaline. He calmly waited for the loose ball to arrive. Tom Hartley bowled a short ball, he pulled. He trusted Kuldeep Yadav’s defenses, the pair adding 76 runs. When Yadav departed, India were still 96 runs behind. His cricketing nous kicked in, and he acted with the maturity of a seasoned lower-order firefighter. Dhoni’s advice to him might have buzzed between his ears. The former Indian captain had told him when Jurel sought his advice in IPL: “He told me ‘it’s a thankless job, there’s more failures than success, so don’t think much. You expect the worst and prepare accordingly.”
Two other aspects of his batting stood out—the nimbleness of foot-work and the shepherding of Akash Deep. His strides are short but decisive, he freely moved back and forth, played sufficiently close to the body and always got in line with the ball.
Ranchi: India’s Dhruv Jurel plays a shot during the third day of the fourth Test cricket match between India and England, in Ranchi, Sunday, Feb. 25, 2024. (PTI Photo/Vijay Verma)
After watching Deep waft agriculturally at a ball, he told the debutant to calm down. To ease his pressure, he hoarded most of the strike until Akash teethed in. The flexibility of the feet perhaps owes to his wicket-keeping. His technique is different to Dhoni’s, more orthodox than Dhoni’s was. He is thinner and more mobile, depending on short steps than big movements.
He is more in the Wriddhiman Saha mould—though not as elastic. And like the Bengal wicket-keeper, he would stretch his sinews fully to stop balls on his leg-side and leap like a point-guard (Jurel watches a lot of basketball and adores Kobe Bryant) to pocket edges or errant bouncers flying over him. He is still a raw masterpiece—his collection down the leg-side to spinners requires polishing. But the foundation is sturdy.
Post his half-century, brought with a single through mid-on, in the direction of the MS Dhoni Pavilion, he shifted through the gears. Not straight from second to fifth, but to the third. He targeted Bashir, smearing him for three of his four sixes, with an unfettered bat-swing. He did so without dropping a bead of sweat, or without cracking a nerve An irony that he perished playing a defensive stroke to Hartley.
It didn’t matter; his ninety whittled down England’s lead to 46. It’s replete with meaning too. It means Rishabh Pant cannot breeze back into the side; it means KS Bharat could see the curtain dropping on his international career; it means the decision to follow his own voice and not his father’s, who wanted him to join the National Defence Academy is vindicated; it means the money his Kargil War veteran father had to borrow to buy cricket gear was not wasted; it means he could put Agra onto India’s cricket map as Dhoni did Ranchi; it means India have discovered a new hero. A hero who emerged in the land of one of its greatest heroes.
