U19 World Cup: Among bunch of boys, Rishabh Pant becomes a ‘bada aadmi’

With three impressive knocks in Dhaka that have attested to his sheer talent, the 18-year-old Pant has arrived. In the metaphorical and real ‘Dilli’. Barely a few hours after he had hit India’s first hundred at this edition of the Youth World Cup, the left-handed opener-wicketkeeper was picked by the Delhi Daredevils for a whopping Rs 1.9 crore in the 2016 Indian Premier League auction in Bangalore. It’s by far the biggest amount money splurged on an Under-19 player in the IPL. Much more than what Virat Kohli and Sarfaraz Khan got. Shreyas Iyer did fetch Rs 2.6 crore last year, but he was 20 by then.

COMPLETE LIST OF SOLD PLAYERS

He is not the biggest rags-to-riches story to come out of the auction this year. That inarguably would be Nathu Singh, son of a labourer. But it is still immensely impressive to have come out of the lower middle class neighbourhood of Ashok Nagar in Roorkee, a town where perhaps more than most other places in India parents would want their child to become an engineer.

With Sarfaraz retained by the Royal Challengers Bangalore, Pant, having made an aggressive Ranji debut for Delhi in October, always was an odd-on favourite from this Under-19 squad to be picked at the auction. While most others in the team would repeat politically correct lines when asked about their IPL aspirations, Pant would share his views honestly and unapologetically. “It’s always their on the mind,” he recently said.

Pant bolstered his claim by putting up quite a show in the group stage here. After 6 runs in 50 minutes against Ireland in the first match, he made a cautious fifty versus New Zealand in the second match. In the third, he tore into a hapless Nepal bowling with a 24-ball 78 that included nine fours and five monstrous sixes. If the IPL scouts hadn’t taken notice of him, he made sure that they now did.

And he served them another last-minute reminder on Saturday. Captain Ishan Kishan won the toss and elected to bat, as if to give himself and fellow batsman another bite at the cherry. Kishan fell cheaply, but Pant made it count. He wasn’t in as murderous a mood as he was against Nepal. In fact, he defended the first two ball, but that was about as much respect as he could show to Nambia’s bowlers on a benign Fatullah pitch. He drove the third ball away to a boundary, the first of fourteen sumptuous fours he would hit —  besides two contemptuous sixes — in his 111-run knock. It could be argued that he has flayed hapless attacks in Bangladesh so far, but, in his defense, you can’t choose your opponents, you have to play and score against whomever you’ve drawn. As Pant walked back after holing out in the deep, combing his hair with his fingers, there was relief on his face. Not dissimilar to what a student appearing in an exam would experience after having done his best and handing the answer sheet over to the invigilator.

The result came three hours later and 2100 kilometers in Bangalore. As the auction resumed after lunch break, the uncapped players came up for bidding. Rishabh’s captain and fellow opener Ishan, who was also one of the prospective buys, went under the hammer before him. Gujarat Lions bagged him for Rs 35 lakh. Then came Pant.

It was a bit surreal to see him crouching behind the stumps going about his business blissfully unaware that a fierce bidding war was going on among four franchises for the youngster. Pune and Mumbai escalated his price to Rs 35 lakh from his base price of Rs 10 lakh. While he calmly collected an Anmolpreet delivery, it soon shot up to Rs 1 crore after Bangalore entered the fray. Mumbai 1.5 crore, Bangalore 1.6 crore, Mumbai 1.7, Bangalore 1.8. At which point, Delhi threw their hat in the ring and snared Pant for Rs 1.9 crore. 19 times the base price of an under-19 player. The over ended and Pant simply walked across to the other end and crouched again.

It wasn’t till the match was over that Pant and Ishan got to know that they had been picked. The youngsters were experiencing a myriad of emotions: happiness, thrill and a sense of fulfillment. For this post-millennial generation of cricketers, the IPL is immense. It began around the same time as most in this squad began to dream about playing cricket. Perhaps it inspired them to take up cricket in the first place.

While Pant was whisked away, Ishan spoke with the media and put his emotions into words. “An IPL contract means a lot to a player, it gives a lot of happiness,” he said after the 197-run win that put India into the semifinal. “You get confidence from it that you have to prove yourself in the World Cup so that people think that you’ve been picked for the right reasons.”

When his counterpart, the Namibian captain Zane Green, was asked to make sense of the fact that a cricketer he had just faced had become a millionaire during the time they were out there, he could just smile. Green is 19 and comes from a country where you don’t play cricket to earn a living. Naturally he couldn’t comprehend it.

By the end of the day three more Under-19 cricketers Green played against on Saturday, Armaan Jaffer (KXIP), Khaleel Ahmed and Mahipal Lomror (both DD), were picked, albeit for their base price of Rs 10 lakh. On the other hand, Washington Sundar, Avesh Khan, Mayank Dagar and Shubham Mavi didn’t come up for bidding. Their time will come.

Asked if there would be party tonight, Ishan was non-committal initially. “We are focused on the World Cup and we want to win like Virat Kohli and Unmukt Chand,” he said. But Virat celebrated after the he was picked by Bangalore, you tell him.

“That I think he celebrated after the WC,” he says. “But not every player has done well. We have to keep everyone’s feelings in mind. If some players are enjoying and some are sitting separately then that’s not good for the team,” Ishan says.

You still pester. Doesn’t Pant owe them all a party?

“Rishabh toh ab bada aadmi ban gaya. Us-se leni toh padegi. Paise-waise nikalwayenge bina chhodenge nahi.”