Bookish techniques and broken records: Jharkhand's Kumar Kushagra rises as a new wicketkeeper-batter sensation

The first thing Kumar Kushagra, an 18-year-old wicketkeeper-batter from Jharkhand's Jamshedpur, did after checking into a BCCI-facilitated plush hotel for the 2023 Deodhar Trophy in Puducherry was to video-call his mother.

"I showed it to her and said, 'see how beautiful the hotel is,' and the only thing she said to me was, 'You will keep getting good hotels, focus on your cricket'," Kushagra said.

Cricket and 'focus' have been an unbreakable marriage in Kushagra's life since he was six. His father, Shashikant, a district commissioner in the GST department, was never interested in playing cricket but bought every book he could find on cricket techniques and pasted cut-outs of good shots on the house's walls.

Shashikant would even go to watch others play in academies, make notes on a few dozen shots, come back home, and verify with the books. Each day, he would make his son practice one shot with all nuances. “You should play cricket, you should play cricket”, Kushagra often heard from his father.

"I was not permitted into the academy, so he used to take me and drop me there," he told Sportskeeda. "I used to sit there and watch people bat and that used to inspire me."

The razor-edged focus and the technical correctness were on display together in the Deodhar Trophy. The right-handed batter scored 227 runs from six matches at an average of 56.75 and a strike rate of 109.13, the sixth-best in the tournament.

Not only was he the youngest among the top-15 run-scorers but also the only one to bat as low as number seven in most of the matches

The grind

Books might help journalists and writers but they don't make cricketers. When Kushagra got old enough to join an academy, he settled into a routine - cricket practice from 5:30 to 6:30 am on the home lawn, school by 7:30 am, academy at 3 pm, and then more practice at home from 8 pm to 11 pm under the lights.

"That phase was consistent practice without seeing any result, just practice, and focusing on my technique," the 2004-born said. "I didn’t focus on whether I was getting selected or not. That was the time when I just focused on my learning: 'Sirf seekhna hai, sirf seekhna hai; matches bhi nahi khelne hai, sirf seekhna hai' (Only learning, only learning; I don't even want to play matches, just want to learn)."

At 10, he got inspired by the man every Jharkhand boy would take inspiration from. Seeing MS Dhoni orchestrate bowlers and fielders from behind the stumps, he fell in love with wicketkeeping and the view of the field from behind the stumps. Soon he was dreaming of winning India the World Cup as a captain and more.

"Getting out of such a small state and making a name for himself in the whole world is not an easy job," Kushagra said. "And that too dominating the entire world. He did not just play cricket, he was out there and dominated on the grounds, 'Ki maarna hai toh maarna hai' (That, if I want to hit, I will hit). That was very inspiring for me."

Kushagra was playing competitive age-group cricket a couple of years later, as early as 2016 in the Vijay Merchant Trophy. His breakthrough came soon in 2019.

He was the top run-scorer in Under-16 zonal matches and the Under-19 Vinoo Mankad Trophy and got called up for Afghanistan Under-19's tour of India. He only scored a couple of 20s and a duck in the five low-scoring matches and got a 47 (51) against New Zealand under-19 in an ensuing series in South Africa.

But the Under-19 team management under Rahul Dravid saw something and included Kushagra in the squad for the 2020 Under-19 World Cup, which was also played in South Africa. At 15, he was the youngest in a team that also included now-senior India players Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tilak Varma, and Ravi Bishnoi.

Kushagra played just one match, against Japan, and scored an unbeaten 13 (11) to chase the tiny target of 42 alongside Jaiswal. It might be seen as a missed opportunity for the teenager. The BCCI only allows players to play one Under-19 World Cup even if they are eligible for another.

Wouldn't he have been better off playing the next one with more maturity and more chances to perform? But learnings off the field throughout this phase were aplenty.

There were daily conversations with Dravid in his room and also an evident jump in mental conditioning and preparation. Apart from better facilities, high-level cricket offered Kushagra situations that he could only visualize earlier.

"In academies, you have to create that atmosphere [of high-level cricket], you have to feed it into your mind that 'Oh, what if I am batting at 100' or 'What if this opposition bowler in now throwing this ball at me', but at the high level, you actually get these situations so it becomes easier," Kushagra said.

All of it came through when he made his domestic debuts a year later.

Breaking records

Kushagra was called up for Jharkhand's Ranji Trophy squad before the World Cup in 2020 as well but he had to miss it because of a pre-tournament camp.

So he made his List A and T20 debuts first in 2021. After playing two matches each in the Vijay Hazare and Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophies, he finally got his time under the sun for a format he was most suited to.

But as luck would have it, Kushagra again missed the first game of the 2022 Ranji Trophy against Chhattisgarh, this time due to a twisted ankle.

"I was in good form and getting an injury at that time feels so bad as a sportsman. So I was trying to recover as soon as possible because I was itching to bat. [I was thinking] 'Abb batting karlu, abb batting karlu?' (Can I bat now? Can I bat now?) That hunger did not end," he said.

The hunger must have been fulfilled by the end of the series because, despite having an underwhelming debut, he scored 439 runs from seven innings at an average of 62.71. He was the thirteenth-best run-scorer in the tournament and the table-topper for Jharkhand in his debut season.

He scored two half-centuries. The first came in his second match, against Tamil Nadu and their brilliant bowling attack, on a turning track.

Jharkhand were chasing 212 runs in the final innings and Kushagra joined his captain Saurabh Tiwary when the team looked down at out at 49/4. His attritional 121-ball 50 took them to 139/5, and Tiwary batted brilliantly with the middle-order to lead them to a narrow two-wicket win.

In the next game, the pre-quarterfinals against Nagaland, Kushagra got a completely different wicket at the lush green Eden Gardens and he piled on 266 runs at almost run-a-ball with the aid of 37 boundaries and two sixes.

"We played that match with full intensity and I love Eden Gardens because the outfield there is very fast and I was able to go with my flow," he said.

At 17 years and 141 days, he became the youngest player in the world to hit 250 in first-class cricket, breaking the 47-year-old record of Pakistani legend Javed Miandad, who hit 311 at 17 years and 311 days, in 1975.

Kushagra's shifting down the order and Deodhar Trophy

Ahead of the next Vijay Hazare Trophy season (2022-23), Tiwary asked Kushagra to be prepared to bat in the middle and lower middle order, something he had not done for most of his career.

Kushagra knew his game was a bit too grounded-shots-oriented since his under-16 days and needed to be upgraded for him to become an all-format player. But this situation required a more focused approach and prep change.

"I used soft balls, tennis balls and heavy bats to do hitting practice, work on that bat flow, on picking the balls in my radar and on picking the slower-ones," Kushagra said."I thought if I can hit sixes, I can win matches for my team."

He hit 10 sixes, the 19th best in the tournament, but the highest for Jharkhand and scored 275 runs from just five innings (he didn't get to bat in three matches) at an average of 68.75. The first of his three half-centuries, against Karnataka, was a 56 (85) and included three sixes when the rest of his team's runs and extras added to 51.

A call-up to the 2023 Deodhar Trophy was always imminent. Here too, he was the crisis man for East Zone, this time while batting further down. Three more fifties came off his bat - 98(87) to help East Zone recover from 57/5 to 337/8, 53 (47) to take them from 157/5 to 319/7, and 68(58) in the final when the team was 115/5.

He feels his consistency was equally about what he did off the field than on it.

"When I was sitting out, I used to notice bowlers I haven’t played, the ones who have played IPL, like Mayank Markande, Sandeep Sharma and big players like them, so I used to sit out and ask my seniors what kind of deliveries they bowl, what areas they hit. I was getting prepared accordingly," Kushagra said.

"So whenever I got the chances, I didn't want to just hit a few or do something fancy and come back. I wanted to encash all the opportunity and help my team benefit," he added.

Most of these knocks were in partnerships with Riyan Parag, who batted higher in the order and had a similarly-consistent season. In an interview with the BCCI before the final, Parag said that he loved to go to bat when the chips were down and the team needed a savior to put a big score or chase a target.

For Kushagra, it wasn't a choice. He said in the position he batted in for East Zone, it's impossible to get an easy situation to score runs.

"That's because if you are batting at no.7 and your starting order batters have played well, they will finish the game as well, and you won’t get a chance, at most you might get two balls. If you are getting a chance to bat, it'll always be in a pressure situation so I was prepared for it."

Kushagra added that batting position doesn't matter to him anymore because his goal is to be a match-winner and the "last man standing" whenever he bats and whichever team he bats for. He said he used to do that in age-group cricket and believes can replicate it consistently at higher levels too.

India, IPL, and handling fame

Kushagra has already started drawing the attention of IPL teams, with Delhi Capitals recently calling him up to their off-season camp to practice, even though he has just played five T20s for Jharkhand without much success.

But for all its money, exposure, and upskilling opportunities with the best coaches in the world, etc, the IPL is just a stepping stone in Kushagra's mind.

"When I started playing cricket I wanted to play for India, so my focus will always remain on India," Kushagra said. "But in between that if you talk about IPL, yes it is a good platform. The line to the India goal goes through IPL as well so it's my focus as well. If you are playing white ball cricket, you cannot go forward by ignoring it."

"As for T20s and Mushtaq Ali, for that also I have started preparing long back, but yes the execution is yet to be done and I am confident that I will execute it well," he added.

Kushagra already became popular after that record-shattering double ton and since then, most of his knocks have been of the kind that makes your eyes stop at his name on the scoreboard, and maybe also give a follow on Instagram.

But he has an extremely pragmatic view of how to handle fame, especially for an 18-year-old. He believes that whatever he wants to achieve in his life, he has already visualized in his head, so even if he hits two double hundreds, and people love it for him, it doesn't change anything because he'll move to the next step.

Some of the clarity comes from his father too.

"[My father said] if you are a good batsman, it will never be a surprise that you have scored so well," Kushagra remarked. "It's a result of your hard work. It’s not like you’ve gotten a lottery ticket and scored so well. If you don’t work hard, you won’t get runs, if you work hard tomorrow as well, you will bear the fruits for it."

The youngster also believes that scoring a big knock makes consistency even more important because that's the time selectors would look at him more closely and it gives him a better chance to impress them.

"For me, all these things are more important than getting happy and getting satisfied," he said.

But what about comparisons? It's almost a curse on every young wicketkeeper-batter that comes out of Jharkhand; in terms of legacy pressure, it's a bit like being Arjun Tendulkar.

Dhoni batted at No. 7 on his first-class debut but shuffled between opening and middle order in List-A before settling in the lower-middle order in ODIs. Ishan Kishan started as an opener and is still doing the role in white-ball cricket but is now batting number six and seven in Tests.

Similar batting positions, same state, crisis man talent? After the Deodhar Trophy, a Jharkhand State Cricket Association official also light-heartedly told Kushagra that he can "reach heights" if he plays like Kishan.

"I do not take pressure about this," Kushagra said. "Because after all, I only have to play in the middle... It's not like if I don't do well, someone else will get kicked out. There's no need to take pressure. I have been playing for the past 10 years and that is what I have to continue doing."