A crisp push to the long-on fence, a strolled single, a warm wave of the bat and a content smile. Abhimanyu Easwaran kept his celebrations as modest as his personality, after compiling his fourth hundred in seven innings this domestic season. It’s his third score in excess of 150, for Rest of India against Mumbai on the third day of the Irani Cup fixture at the Ekana stadium in Lucknow.
It’s not that he has become tired of scoring hundreds, or resigned to the fate of piling runs without rewards, but just that Abhimanyu has a sense of emotional equilibrium, a passion for the game that exceeds materialistic gains. Definitely, it is the dream of playing Test cricket that fuels every cricketer on the domestic field, but Abhimanyu has trained himself to relish the moments rather than wallow over misfortunes. “I just love batting, scoring big runs, and winning games for my team,” he had said after his Duleep Trophy hundred against India D in Anantapur.
It’s how he has batted all his life, from the academy his chartered-accountant-turned-cricket-coach father had set up in balmy Dehradun, a year before his birth, to the countless days under the hot domestic sun of the country.
The latest hundred, an unconquered 151, embodied his career in a nutshell, his status as a domestic powerhouse and the virtues that make him. From the moment he strode in with RoI responding to Mumbai’s 537, he exuded firmness of technique and mind, that nothing would come between him and another century.
The pitch was flat, the bowlers probing than penetrative, and in conditions as these, he just bedded in and piled on the runs, maintaining a control percentage of 88, offering just one life, a difficult catch when he was on 125, a few edges that fell short and putting another display of classical first-class batting. He bats without fuss and ragged edges, he is all neat straight lines and fluid movement of the feet, with joy and time at his disposal, and a minimalism of movements. He might not thrill like modern-day all-format youngsters, but exudes peace like seasoned red-ball batsmen do.
He is not caught up in the rat-race to impress IPL scouts—though he has confessed his shortest-form ambitions. He bats in the same way as he had perhaps a decade ago—a risk-free game, but not overtly defensive. He took RoI to 289/4, trailing by 248 runs.
For red-ball connoisseurs, he makes for an enjoyable watch. He drives gracefully on the front-foot, punches emphatically on the back-foot. He cuts and pulls, sweeps the spinners, uses his feet nimbly to loft them down the ground. Against Mumbai, like heyday Cheteshwar Pujara, he often sashayed down the track and drilled them through the leg-side with a whirl of the wrists. His powers of concentration were admirable. Even after completing his hundred on a flat pitch and against tired bowlers, he didn’t feel the need to accelerate, fleece some quick runs and make an impression on the selectors.
But with the flurry of hundreds and sustained excellence, he is making a compelling case to be considered for the national squad. This season, still nascent, he has averaged 77.25. The season before, he had aggregated close to 60, the term before 73; in seven out of the 11 seasons, he has maintained an average of 50 or more, including the peak of 80.80 in 2018-19. In 34 India A games, he averages 47 and has registered six hundreds. On 17 occasions, he converted hundreds to 15-plus scores, including two double hundreds. The highest, 233 versus Sri Lanka A, came against an attack that comprised Lahiru Kumara, Vishwa Fernando and Lakshan Sandakan.
Some batsmen turn bitter without due recognition, but not Abhimanyu.
Yet, he has been on the fringes for the best part of the last 10 years. He was on the standby list for India’s tour of Australia in 2020-21 as well as the England tour later that year; he stood in as the injured Rohit Sharma’s replacement in the Bangladesh trip at the end of 2022. Yet, he saw youngsters like Yashasvi Jaiswal bypass him in the hierarchy.
Even Rohit had established himself as a Test match opener when Abhimanyu was racking runs in domestic cricket. The road ahead too looks grim.
Though India have historically carried more than two openers for lengthy overseas trips, India are flooded with back-up opening options in their squad. KL Rahul could fill in if either Rohit or Jaiswal gets injured, or if the latter endures a lean patch. In an emergency situation, Shubman Gill too could put in the shift. He knows he will turn 30 next year, that hitting-an-iceberg age when a sportsman begins to drift out of the selectors’ mind.
None of these scenarios would preoccupy Abhimanyu’s mind. When he resumes his innings on Friday morning, he would be just thinking about batting for as long as he could, like a batsman born for the joy of batting.
Brief Scores: Rest of India 289 for 4 (Abhimanyu Easwaran 151*, Mohit Avasthi 2-66, Mohit Avasthi 2-66) trail Mumbai 537 (Sarfaraz 222*, Ajinkya Rahane 97, Mukesh Kumar 5-110) by 248 runs.
The latest hundred, an unconquered 151, embodied his career in a nutshell, his status as a domestic powerhouse and the virtues that make him. (BCCI Domestic/X) 
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