Mayank Agarwal: The monk who sold chaos for class

A stand-out feature of Mayank Agarwal’s double century against Bangladesh on Friday was his exceptional shot selection. It’s a very important facet of the game for a naturally attacking batsman like him. Practicing the art to choose which ball to hit and which one to defend is an extremely difficult one. One loose shot and a few failures is all that it takes for critics to sharpen their knives.

Agarwal, in fact, experienced it the hard way during the early part of his career when he was accused of throwing his wicket away too cheaply. Having modelled his career on Virender Sehwag, Agarwal then knew just one method of batting and when he failed to get the balance between attack and defence right, runs dried up and he eventually lost his place in the Karnataka side as well. But Agarwal 2.0, taking wings in the 2016-17 domestic season, is a different batsman altogether. He’s worked hard on his defence but he has also sharpened his attacking game. Very importantly, he’s learnt exactly when to press the accelerator without crashing his car. All along, the 28-year-old has also cultivated strong mental discipline that has helped him belt out those daddy hundreds.

On Friday, all of those attributes which helped him power his way into the Indian side following repeated ignorance by the selectors was on display. He respected pacers Ebadat Hossain and Abu Jayed in a probing morning session but buried spinners Taijul Islam and Mehidy Hasan under a dune of runs. He foresaw exactly when the spinners would err and belted those balls into the stands.

Despite Taijul and Mehidy dishing the easy stuff, he didn’t get carried away. He remained focused and played each ball on its merit. Barely was there was a false shot. He batted as he would face a quality attack. He was batting like he is nicknamed — Monk.

“I think it goes down to gameplan,” said Agarwal on Friday. “Who you are feeling comfortable against and who you want to attack. Then picking the right balls (to attack). Still got to respect the game and you can’t just say that okay I am going to hit each and every ball. You can’t do that. It’s not going to happen that way. It’s understanding okay, this is the bowler I am playing well today and this is the ball that I can go after. Pick those balls and then have the mental discipline to build your innings on that.”