When Ajay Singh, principal of The Scindia School in Gwalior, watched his student plan cricket matches from the back of a team meeting room, he was careful not to intervene. He wanted to see what the boy did when things got difficult.
“If situations became challenging, he would discuss possible solutions,” Singh recalls in a chat with IndiaToday.in.
“He would take feedback, and others would chip in as well. There was a clarity in his mind about what should be done in different situations. He definitely had that leadership instinct.”
That boy was Yashbardhan Singh Chauhan.
On 11 June, the BCCI named the 17-year-old right-handed all-rounder as captain of India’s Under-19 men’s team for the upcoming tour of Sri Lanka: three one-day matches and two multi-day fixtures, beginning in Hambantota on 4 July.
The news arrived, as it often does in Gwalior, through the local cricket network.
Yashbardhan first heard from Vijay Prakash Sharma, secretary of the Gwalior Division Cricket Association. His father, Anami Singh Chauhan, received a call shortly after from Sharma and from Lavkesh Choudhary, the boy’s childhood coach at Tansen Cricket Academy.
“For several minutes, I was unable to say anything,” Anami says. “It felt as though a dream that had been nurtured for years had suddenly become reality.”
It is, in many ways, a borrowed dream.
Anami played cricket himself, a leg-spinner, he says, with a deep connection to the game, and carried a quiet hope that someone from his family would make a name in it. When Yashbardhan came along, the signs were visible early.
“From a very young age, he displayed a different kind of passion,” his father says.
“If he ever missed out on playing a match, he would become extremely upset. He always had a hunger to play and a tremendous passion for stepping onto the field.”
His mother, Reena Chauhan, watched from a different angle, the one that notices injuries.
“He was hurt on several occasions, but he never gave up,” she says. “He would always tell us that everything was fine and then return to the field again.”
When the captaincy news came, her first instinct was not to call anyone.
“The first thing we did was thank God.”
CHAMBAL KA GRIT
Yashbardhan comes from the Chambal region, a belt of Madhya Pradesh better known for its ravines and its folklore than its cricket infrastructure. That, says Ajay Singh, is precisely the point.
“If you look historically at the Chambal belt, people here are very tough. They’re fighters. They don’t give in easily. They have this attitude of just continuing until they achieve what they want. That’s one thing. Secondly, they have that fire in the belly.”
The infrastructure, Singh notes, has caught up with the attitude.
The Scindia family’s long association with cricket in the region — Madhavrao Scindia laid early foundations, and Jyotiraditya Scindia, now MPCA president, has continued the work — has helped produce a proper cricketing ecosystem, anchored by a stadium in Gwalior that has hosted international matches.
This Sri Lanka tour features not one but two players from the Chambal region — Yashbardhan as captain, and Manal Chauhan in the multi-day squad.
The talent was evident early enough to draw serious attention.
As a 13-year-old playing for Chambal Division in the Under-13 inter-divisional AW Kanmadikar Trophy, Yashbardhan struck 425 off 248 balls and 235 off 166 balls in the same tournament.
Word reached Chandrakant Pandit, then coach of Madhya Pradesh, who came to the ground to see this wonder-kid for himself. Yashbardhan was dismissed for 391 that day.
Pandit had seen enough.
FORGED AT SCHOOL
Scindia School is where the cricketer became something more.
The school runs the HH Maharaja Madhavrao Memorial Cricket Tournament, one of the more competitive inter-school competitions in the country, and it was in the planning meetings for that tournament that Singh first saw Yashbardhan’s mind at work.
“I would take a back seat and observe how he planned,” he says.
“There was a clarity in his mind about what should be done in different situations. If the team was struggling to get a wicket, he would talk through the options.”
Off the field, the same instinct extended to his juniors in Shivaji House.
Even after finishing his own net sessions, he would stay back — not because anyone asked him to, but because younger boys came looking.
“The younger students would go to him for tips on batting, stance and what they should focus on,” Singh says.
“He would tell them how to bowl better and explain the finer nuances of batting and bowling. The coaches were there, of course, but he would take that extra effort to help juniors learn.”
Singh teaches by watching. And what he watched told him plenty.
Yashbardhan loved Physical Education and Painting — the subjects that get you out of a chair.
His English was weak initially, but he worked at it until he could hold a conversation comfortably.
Small things, perhaps. But Singh reads them differently.
“Characters are forged in adversity,” he says.
“Adversity means being challenged and stepping out of your comfort zone. Where do students face those challenges? On the playing field and in activities. That’s where they learn how to deal with setbacks and defeats. One thing that’s very important for me as a principal is how children handle themselves when they don’t win. That is where they learn resilience and the ability to bounce back.”
Yashbardhan has just finished his Class 12 exams. He is 17.
The Sri Lanka tour camp begins on 23 June; the squad flies out on 30 June.
There will be harder tours, bigger opponents, and louder occasions to come — or so everyone in Gwalior believes.
Ajay Singh has a specific image in mind.
“Right now, he’s leading the Boys in Blue,” the principal says.
“But my dream for Yash is that he goes from the Scindia blue jersey to the India blue jersey. Hopefully, God willing, and with his hard work, he should be able to do it.”
Two blues. One journey. It has already begun.
– Ends
