George's104-ball 115 was the cornerstone of India's successful 311-run chase against Afghanistan at the U19 World Cup semifinal in Harare on Wednesday. (X/BCCI)
A crisply flicked four through mid-on from Aaron George’s bat that rang in his century, in the fine tradition of Hyderabad batsmen, sent ripples of joy from the Harare dugout to his Hyderabad home, and spilled onto his ancestral house in Kottayam. The celebrations were stunningly measured, not of an over-zealous teenager but of a calm and measured youth, neither lost to overconfidence nor overthinking. His 104-ball 115 was the cornerstone of India’s successful 311-run chase against Afghanistan at the U19 World Cup semifinal in Harare on Wednesday.
In Hyderabad, his mother Preethi was nervous as he streamed closer to the hundred. “I was almost out of breath when he was in his 90,” she says. His father Easo Varghese and friends were more relaxed. “I was a tensed all these days, as he was not playing his A game. Every time he bats, I get tense. I could feel my heart pound,” she says, her voice now breathless with excitement.
Until the moment, his tournament was one of ruing and regret. An elbow injury robbed him of two games, thereafter his outings were a blur of gorgeous strokes and frustrating ends. Often, a rare indiscretion or an unplayable ball would consume his three-figure ambitions. But he remained unruffled, weathering the crisis with composed equanimity. “Right from a young age, I have been taught to take success and failure in my stride. To not get carried away by success and not get defeated by setbacks,” he told The Indian Express before the World Cup.
The support system at home is sturdy. His family is invested in his cricket, but not over-obsessive. The pillar of his strength is his father, Easo. He was an aspiring cricketer, a left-arm spinner, whose gifts and aspirations withered due to a lack of proper grooming. Cricket weaned away from his life when the gruff chores of a sub-inspector, with Hyderabad Police, consumed him.
But when Aaron’s cricketing dreams assumed an upward trajectory, he hung up the uniform for a corporate job, to devote more time to raising his son. “He definitely is my inspiration and my ultimate guru,” Aaron said, before promptly explaining the sacrifices of his mother, a mathematics teacher, who is from Kottayam. “Still makes,” he quickly added. “She takes care of every minute thing of mine, it is too many to detail,” he said, and interjected,” But I am not a maths person”. The emphasis on academics, which runs in his family, remained stubborn. He did not flinch from it either. “I am fortunate to have so many good people around me.” And his pet dogs, Mike and Charlie.
Aaron George with his family.
Preethi, though, doesn’t like the word sacrifice. “I would say we had fun all along. We used to travel for every game of his. We had no Onam, Christmas or Vishu. At times our car was our home. We thought, let him go as far as he could. We will support him,” she says. To those who asked her about academics, she would say: “I am confident of teaching him properly.”
Not to forget his sister, Ananya, a lawyer in Bengaluru. Sometimes when the parents were away or busy with chores, Ananya would accompany Aaron. She would get buried in books while he would be blunting a hundred balls. “She would be busy studying even at the academy. She was always studious,” Aaron said. They are thickly bonded. Even the day before he flew to Mumbai for the trip to South Africa, he accompanied her to the railway station. In the morning, they had gone to church together. He corrected when asked if he is God-fearing. “I would say I am God-loving,” he said. There is startling clarity in everything he said, like his strokes, precise and definite, with little grey shades.
Even the first time he batted had an exactness about it. On his fourth birthday, someone gifted him a plastic cricket bat. He began swinging his new toy. To Easo’s surprise, he did not hack wantonly like children of his age, but swung straight. His eyes shone with excitement. “Thereafter, he would make me tap with a smaller ball in the drawing room of our house. It was small fun sessions, which honed my muscle memory,” he recounted.
It was not until he was seven that he was enrolled at a formal coaching centre. He attended an HCA camp, where he held himself firmly against older boys. He seamlessly blended into various age groups before striking gold in his opportunities with the national team. His training mantra is short and sweet. “I go with specific plans, that is, if I were to practice a stroke, I want to perfect. Or if I am working on a flaw, I will work on that. I don’t spend too much time in the nets, rather I look to make the most of my time,” he said.
Watching him makes his father emotional and proud, his mother and grandmother a wee bit tense. Like when he got hit on the helmet against Pakistan during the Asia Cup. Aaron chuckled: “They all got upset, but I felt it was all a bit exaggerated. It was not that heavy a hit. It often happens in the game.”
The training, support system and faith have instilled him with the grounding to see through the tough times, which he did on a bright afternoon in Harare with a match-winning ton in a record-breaking U19 World Cup chase.
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