Manal Chauhan started playing cricket for a simple reason — he wanted to bunk school.
The boy from Morena has since led Madhya Pradesh to its maiden Cooch Behar Trophy title and made his India u-19 debut on the Sri Lanka tour, scoring 150 and an unbeaten 51 in the second youth Test. After a decent Vinoo Mankad Trophy campaign, the all-rounder missed out on the u-19 World Cup. Chandrakant Pandit has helped him work on the mental side of the game, while India u-19 coach Yere Goud taught him to forget mistakes and move on. Match starts at 9 a.m.
Because i wanted to play the World Cup, “I was very demotivated. He would tell his parents he was going to school and head off to play cricket instead. “Gradually, I realised that there were age-group divisions and that you move forward through them and then play for the State. I became very interested in it, so I started giving it my full time. But it wasn’t a smooth ride. “I thought that, at least, I would win the red-ball tournament for MP. I did not know that I would come this far from there. Madhya Pradesh did win the Cooch Behar Trophy. Then came the India call-up. Manal is doing just that, taking it one step at a time.
“At that time, I was not that interested in the sport, but I kept playing,” Manal told The Hindu ahead of Monday’s second youth ODI between India under-19 and the Australian colts here. At that time, I did not know that there would be further bilateral series like this,” he said. His parents and coaches told him there would be more opportunities. “The biggest learning has been that things will keep going up and down in life, but you have to stick to your work ethic,” he said.