Yashasvi Jaiswal opens up on ‘special’ hundred in Perth

Out of his four Test hundreds in his short career so far, Yashasvi Jaiswal believes his latest in the Perth Test stands out.

A hard-grafted 161 off 297 deliveries from the southpaw, forged across two days of gritty Test cricket in Perth, is his first in Australia and has put the visitors in the driving seat to take an early lead in the 2024/25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

Speaking after Indian pacers reduced Australia to 12/3 while chasing a mammoth total of 534, Jaiswal conceded to having manifested a Test hundred in Australia for a long time.

“For me all the centuries are amazing but this will be special because I really wanted to do it. I worked so hard for it, in every practice session. I wanted to score runs here in Australia,” Jaiswal said.

“I always wanted to tour Australia and do well here. It was important for my game to score good here and give my best,” he added.

Having resumed his innings at 90 on Sunday, Jaiswal crossed the triple digit milestone with a sensational upper cut off Josh Hazlewood. A stroke, a delivery, the southpaw shares, he had seen coming.

“To be honest, I knew he was going to bowl me a bouncer because the field was like that,” he said.

“He was trying to bowl me outside the off stump but I knew he will do something and I was ready for that ball. In my mind, I knew if he was going to bowl me a bouncer, I will play that shot. Luckily he did, and I played that shot, and I enjoyed it.”

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The Indian opener also received high praise from the seasoned Australian pacer, who admitted that while Australia did employ multiple plans against the left-handed batter, it was to no avail.

"We cycled through a few plans. He batted really well. He’s a good player. I mean, we went through a couple (plans), we sort of hung it outside off for a bit of an off-side field. We tried straight, we tried the bouncers, we tried a lot of things, he negated everything. So credit to him," Hazlewood said.

Jaiswal’s 161 was followed by Virat Kohli stitching his 30th Test ton later in the day, his seventh in Australia - most by an Indian batter in the country.

“I’ve seen him score runs in Perth before. Today I saw him do that live from the other end,” Jaiswal said.

While the Indian number four began his innings on a slower note, he amped up the pace as he neared a century, scoring his second fifty off just 47 deliveries.

“He has been doing this for a long time. He is just incredible. We were so happy about him, that he should finish it and then we can go out and field. I think that is what was going on, we were waiting for his hundred. And he played amazingly,” Jaiswal shared.