Is Aakash the opener India is looking for?

Nearly twenty years ago, a seven-year-old boy stood around in Kotla II, waiting for the first phase of the DDCA U-15 trials to begin.

Nearly twenty years ago, a seven-year-old boy stood around in Kotla II, waiting for the first phase of the DDCA u-15 trials to begin. He didn’t know anything about the technicalities of the game — he had just learnt how to catch a ball properly.

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“My father took me to Sir (Sonnet coach Tarak Sinha), with the request that I should be taught how to catch a ball properly. I spent all my time practicing what he taught me and playing around with a bat as big as me,” says Aakash Chopra. “Then I presented myself for the trials.”

In the first phase, each boy had to take two high catches or get eliminated. Chopra managed to hang on to both but couldn’t do much when it came to the batting. “I was a short seven-year-old, just about higher than the stumps. The first ball went well over me and I thought I had to go and get it back. As I turned to do just that, the second one went past me. The third I touched but Sir stopped it there.”

Sinha told him: “You are too young but you’ll do. Come back after two years.”

And the day he turned nine, Chopra returned to Sonnet. He’s been with the club ever since.

It’s been a long haul for the 26-year-old from those early, tentative days to now — when a century in the tour opener against the Kiwis last week at Vizag has made him a serious contender for an India berth.

It wasn’t an exceptional knock in itself. The wicket offered nothing for the fast bowlers, the attack was ordinary and most batsmen who batted under those circumstances would have liked the chance to grind the New Zealand attack.

What probably lifted the knock out of the league of the ordinary was the personal pressure under which it was played. That, and the fact that Chopra took the proferred chance, standing there and grinding the Kiwi attack into the Vizag dust, and in the process showing determination to stay at that wicket, unbeaten till the end.

Indian cricket, these past few months, has been witness to an almost obsessive debate over the hunt for a specialist Test opener who can see off the new ball abroad. Given that India has fielded an astounding 41 opening combines since Sunil Gavaskar made his final bow and with the tour of Australia looming ahead, this isn’t surprising.

But that doesn’t make it any easier for those in contention for an India call.

“The pressure is obviously tremendous,” says Chopra. “Even if you keep telling yourself there’s no point in thinking about what you can’t control, the thought is obviously there at the back of your mind.” And then, most importantly, Chopra was making a comeback from injury and going straight into a crucial match without any competitive cricket in five months.

The Delhi opener hadn’t played a game at any level since the Ranji Trophy semi-final against Tamil Nadu in April. In early May, he had surgery on his right knee for an injury suffered playing football.

“It was the loneliest time of my life,” he says, of this summer gone by. “For one, I knew my knee would keep me out of contention for the India A tour to England and that played on my mind, as a good performance there would be noticed by everyone. Then, with everyone busy, I was pretty much on my own. It was very depressing.”

As he said, the pressure was tremendous in Vishakapatnam.

The on-again, off-again situation because of the rains and the heavy outfield didn’t help either. “On the last day, I was quite worried about my strike rate,” he says.

So during the tea break, he asked VVS Laxman for advice, whether he should try and go after the bowling. The genial Hyderabadi told him to take it easy, that he was playing just fine. “He said it was vital that I stay there and play as I was doing and that it would get easier as the outfield dried out. It did.”

The Vizag match showed two things. Chopra has an opener’s temperament and is a very good player of spin as he showed by repeatedly stepping out to drive the slow bowlers.

How well he’ll fare against the fast bowlers will be seen here, if the selectors decide they want to see more of him. Jacob Oram and Daryl Tuffey will probably turn out for the Kiwis in the second three-day game from Thursday and hopefully, this will be a more bowler-friendly wicket than Vizag.

For the present though, this compact young batsman continues to believe in himself, to work and to dream.

“I can only give it my best shot, do whatever I can do and know how to do — score runs. There’s no point in worrying about anything else. I believe if it’s meant to be, it will.”