Shashwat Rawat - a World Cup dream, born in Haridwar

Haridwar, the holy city in the foothills of Uttarakhand, has been pigeonholed as the final destination for so many things in India, including human life itself, that it's now hard to even think it can give something good back to the world.

Even as the rest of the country speaks about development and goals in various national statistics, 10 years don't change much in Haridwar.

It's not just the Ganges, the temples, the roads, and the shopping malls - which, if you are wondering, there's just one, opened in 2012 with 80 percent of shops yet to be rented - the city has always floated between a beautiful, peaceful weekend getaway and a conservative shackle restricting its 400,000.

Sport, thus, is a thought that comes after the afterthought. In the city's biggest schools, the space and time for sporting events are always plummeting, mostly replaced by online classes of things already taught offline.

Sport is played, adored but hardly coached enough, for long enough, with enough patience from families. Here, the word 'idol' only has a religious meaning and never a humane one; here, God means God and not Sachin Tendulkar. Those who somehow play sport, do so with the knowledge that they can't lose, ever.

So you are confused when someone at one of the highest levels of a sport tells you they are from Haridwar. You ask again to ensure your ears don't betray you, "Did you say Haridwar? You are... from Haridwar?"

"Yes, I am from Haridwar... from the Shyampur-Kangri region. Yes, I was born there," confirmed Shashwat Rawat, now a batter for the Baroda state team, and the Player of the Match for India 'A' in their title-winning match of the 2024 Duleep Trophy.

"When I was young, my cousin brothers, and I used to play cricket with the tennis ball. I was very interested in playing cricket. I played for three years in Dehradun (Uttarakhand's capital, an hour-and-a-half drive from Haridwar) for a while, but Uttarakhand didn't have [BCCI] affiliation at that time so I moved to Baroda," he added.

In the final round of the Duleep Trophy, where the cream of India's domestic red-ball talent just under the national level clashed against each other, Shashwat was one of the only two players representing Uttarakhand. And, boy, did he represent.

Centuries galore

Shashwat wasn't surprised when he got the call-up for the Duleep Trophy. He was expecting it as the fifth-highest run-scorer of the 2023 Ranji Trophy.

His 784 runs in eight matches comprised one double hundred, three other tons, and two 50s. Not only was his aggregate and average of 60.30 better than some Indian players, but Shashwat, 22 at the time, was also the youngest in the top 15.

But he perhaps wouldn't have expected to be selected for India 'A'. The teams' naming from 'A' to 'D' wasn't rankings per se but India 'A' had the most players who were also part of India's Tests against Bangladesh - five. India 'B' had four while India 'C' and 'D' had none and one, respectively.

This meant Shashwat had no chance of getting into the team's 11 for the first match against India 'B'. A 76-run loss and the mass exodus of internationals meant he got in for the second, two spots below his Baroda position of No. 3.

"Even though I didn't play the first game, I wanted to learn," Shashwat recalls in an exclusive chat with Sportskeeda. "I thought I'd take back whatever I could learn and do well whenever I get the opportunity."

In the first innings of this opportunity against India 'D', Shashwat got out for 16 edging a ball he could've left. But the second innings was much better.

Coming to bat at 264/3, with his team's second-innings lead well past 300, Sashwat could take his time against Arshdeep Singh and Saurabh Kumar. He played and missed a few but convincingly defended and left the rest.

Once set, he unfurled a flurry of boundaries against the duo. Racing down the track to drive Arshdeep and lofting and sweeping every time Saurabh flighted the ball. Sixty-four seamless runs, not out after 88 balls, with the match in the pocket.

"I was quite upset after the first innings. It was like, 'No, [that can't happen]. Then, okay, I got out, what mistake did I make?'", he remembers his thoughts. "I took care of those things and the next innings was better."

A squatty left-hander, the middle of his bat seemed stronger than others. Every ball he touched - hardly any T20 power hit - was superbly timed because his compact technique allowed him to play late, straight, and in complete balance.

His next innings didn't give him a situation to flaunt drives. He came to bat at 17-3 which soon became 36-5 with Anshul Kamboj and Vijaykumar Vyshak breathing fire with substantial pace and movement off the deck.

Anything not very full or very short was ignored and the rest were driven, pulled, or pushed with the straightest bat possible. He reached his 50 in 119 balls and then came the step-outs, the reverse sweeps, to bring up his century in 188 balls.

He was in such a beaming spotlight of love from India 'A' players that his partner, the No. 9 Avesh Khan, called for his single at 99. Shashwat got out for 124 - to a Vyshak peach with the second new ball - but not before putting up 90 runs with Avesh and taking the score to 244/8 of an eventual 297/10.

"When I was batting, I just kept thinking about not repeating my mistakes and keep on playing and the runs followed," Shashwat says. "Avesh bhai stood with me. The plan was to play four balls and take the single only on the fifth or sixth ball so he got only one or two balls to play, which helped our partnership."

Back again in the third innings, he scored his quickest half-century - 53 off 67 - because India 'A' was racing against time to declare at a winnable target. The match was almost not won - India 'C' were at 169/3 at Tea on the final day, chasing 350 but needing only a draw to win the title.

"During the Tea break we were going to call off the match," Shashwat says. "Six (seven) wickets were left to fall so the team thought it wouldn't be possible to do it, and that we are trying needlessly and should just get done with it. But then we planned that let's bowl for half an hour if we take a wicket or two, then we'll see. Then suddenly, Ishan Kishan bhai got out, then (Abhishek) Porel got out and we found momentum to eventually win the match."

The celebrations, the running, and the dancing at the final wicket showed how the bonds between players from different states - some knew each other already, some didn't - had developed in just one month. Prasidh Krishna's final wicket of Anshul Kamboj also sealed the much-deserved PotM award for Shashwat.

Such versatility and range in the biggest matches on the Indian domestic calendar isn't a common sight, not least for a 22-year-old in his 17th first-class game. Then there's the pressure of the match situation, which never seems to tell on him.

"[I enjoy it], I mean, I have done the same for Baroda many times. I have scored many centuries where I have had to score runs with the tailenders. I am used to these situations," he says, with the same calmness that shows in his batting.

These qualities also earned him a call-up in the Rest of India team for the fabled Irani Cup which began in Lucknow on Tuesday. Given his form, he might have pushed his brilliant first-class average of 53.74 further, but the team decided to go with international players Ishan Kishan and Dhruv Jurel ahead of him.

Haridwar to Baroda Via Dehradun

It takes a village to raise a child. But to raise a small-town kid into a cricketer of this caliber in India takes many villages, cities, and some capitals.

Shashwat's batting talent -- he used to bowl a bit of medium-pace, too, but loved batting more - was spotted by his tennis-ball play-mates, his cousins, and neighbors in Haridwar. They approached his parents, Gopal Singh Rawat and Dr. Narmada Rawat, teachers in Almora and Bahadarabad respectively.

Mr. Singh wanted his son to follow in his footsteps in teaching. His elder sister, Mansi, used to push him for studies but didn't stand a chance against cricket kits.

They didn't know much about what the future was like in the sport and had only seen their son outgrow washing paddles as a kid and use a cricket bat as a pre-teen. But the glimmer in his eyes about batting pursued them otherwise.

In one trial, a coach in Haridwar initially refused to admit Shashwat because he was too young, but by evening, Mr. Singh got to know that his name was on top of the selection list. In the second round in Dehradun, Mr. Singh sneakily asked a coach about young Shashwat's potential, without revealing their relationship, and the response convinced him that his son could make Uttarakhand proud.

So, Shashwat's education from class sixth to 10th was spent at the Maharana Pratap Sports Complex in Dehradun, which shaped his basic technique.

"My first coaches were Pawal Pal and Bharatveer sir in Dehradun. Then, I have also learned a lot from seniors. There was a senior named Kailash Bahadur Rana. He used to motivate me a lot and teach me," Shashwat says.

Uttarakhand wasn't affiliated with the BCCI and Shashwat needed a state to further his career. The first choice was Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh but it was vetoed by Dr. Narmada due to the excessive heat, despite, as she told News127 in 2020, her son's plea to "even live in a dense forest to play cricket".

Here came Baroda.

"I came alone," Shashwat says. "I was 15-16 years old (10th class) when I decided to move to Baroda. It was difficult. Initially, when I came, I stayed with a relative for three months then I started to live alone on rent. I used to get some money from home and then I used to play some local matches and earn ₹500-1000 from here and there, which was enough."

In Baroda, household names Jyotsnil Singh and Swapnil Singh (who now plays for Uttarakhand and Royal Challengers Bengaluru) held his hand while former cricketer-turned-coach Dhiren Mistry "grinded" his batting.

Good performances in local tournaments got him to Baroda's age-group sides and soon, an India Under-19 call-up for the 2019 Challenger Trophy. Stand-out knocks got him the coveted call-up for the 2020 Under-19 World Cup.

But as Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tilak Verma, and Ravi Bishnoi, among others came out of the tournament as stars despite losing in the final, Shashwat couldn't show his talent because the team combination didn't have a place for him in the 11.

The next few years were a battle. He twisted his ankle in a match after the World Cup and suffered a serious injury. It took him a few months to recover and in that time, COVID-19 hit, and domestic red-ball cricket programs suffered.

In 2021, after recovery, Shashwat was picked for Baroda's List-A and T20 teams. He was at home, and with COVID-19 still around, apprehensive about going back to Baroda, but his father pushed him, citing loyalty and respect for the state board.

Shashwat came back but the performances didn't quite follow and he remained in and out of the team. Here, the loyalty he had earned repaid him.

"When I came here, I was all alone. When you don't play then people... the situation is just not good. But my friends never judged me. Whenever we meet there's that unique bond, we sit together and talk [like usual]. They have had quite a big role in my life," he said.

"Whenever I have faced any health issues, they have always stayed with me. I also got infected by Covid and the situation was really bad but they still never left me alone. There was someone with me all the time. I won't take names because there are so many that if I miss someone, I'll get a call! They are like brothers. Even when I suffered my ankle injury, I couldn't walk for a month or two and my family wasn't with me, even still they were with me. Whenever I need something, I just need to call one of them and that thing is brought in front of me," he said.

The work paid off in late 2022 when he made his first-class debut for Baroda against Odisha in Cuttack and scored a 135 (198) in his maiden innings - another Player of the Match performance - and has never looked back since.

Chasing dreams

Shashwat has left Haridwar for good and would likely spend most of his domestic career in Baroda. The word 'idol' does have a humane meaning for him, and as his cricket career has grown, he has had many of them, and is currently settled on Virat Kohli, whose "attitude, game sense and the way he bats", he loves.

But in his words, Bhole Baba ki nagri, Lord Shiva's city, hasn't quite left him yet as he derives confidence and innateness from his faith.

"I believe it (the Duleep Trophy and Irani Cup call-ups) is all because of Baba's grace. I don't worry too much. I believe that when He is willing, He'll make everything as good as possible," he said.

Test success just seems obvious for his well-oiled batting style but recently, Shashwat has started to accumulate runs in other formats too, scoring a table-topping 257 runs in the 2023 Uttarakhand Premier League. Let alone a format bias, he doesn't even have a place or time bias when it comes to batting.

"I just love cricket, no matter how or where it's being played," he said. "Even when I go back to Haridwar, you can't play a lot with the leather ball, so I play with the tennis ball too."

Playing for the Rest of India against the Ranji Trophy winners, Mumbai would have been the perfect icing on the cake after domination in two domestic competitions. But Shashwat's goals, having already made Uttarakhand, Haridwar, and his parents proud, are too big to be bogged down by one disappointment.

"I want to improve myself as a player, want to grind myself, fitness-wise, batting-wise and take my batting to a different level," he said. "I don't think about if I should get to play in a certain way or a certain tournament. If I do these things (the processes) right, I know I'll achieve things that I haven't even thought about yet. I have an unshakable belief In God that if I work hard and stay on the right path, a lot of good things will come my way. The ultimate goal is to play for India and win a World Cup for India."