Persistence pays

Shardul Thakur’s emergence as a well-rounded cricketer is a result of his long, hard domestic grind

- NEERU BHATIA

Shardul Thakur has personality traits of both Ajinkya Rahane and Rohit Sharma, his Mumbai teammates.

He has Rahane’s quiet, understated competitiveness and the forthrightness of Sharma, with whom he shares a childhood coach. The grapevine has it that he once asked senior selectors to release him from one of his teams ahead of a match he was not playing in so that he could play for his club. This was not arrogance; all he wanted to do was play.

So, when he got the opportunity to play in the final Test of India’s Australia tour, the bowling all-rounder grabbed it. In only his second Test, Thakur, 29, took seven wickets. The bonus was his batting. In the first innings, he scored 67 and forged a 123-run seventh-wicket partnership with debutant Washington Sundar (the duo batted for 36 overs on day three), which turned the tide against the hosts.