Yashasvi Jaiswal

His junior years were productive. After a shaky start on an India U-19 tour of Sri Lanka, where low scores briefly cost him his place, he struck 114 in the final to secure his spot. He went on to make a strong impression at the 2020 U19 World Cup, and the Rajasthan Royals brought him into the IPL.

His first IPL seasons were modest, with 3 appearances in 2020 and 10 the next year, yet the Royals retained him before the mega auction. Heavy scoring in domestic cricket followed, and in the 2023 IPL he flourished at the top of the order, making 625 runs at an average of 48.08 with a strike rate above 160. That season he reached a half-century off only 13 balls against KKR, the fastest in IPL history, and registered his first IPL hundred against Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede Stadium.

That form earned him a Test call-up for the tour of the West Indies, and he marked his debut innings with 171, taking the Player of the Match award. He also entered T20I cricket that year and hit a century against Nepal at the Asian Games. A difficult two-Test series in South Africa yielded only 50 runs, but at home against England he topped the run charts with consecutive double hundreds, including a record 12 sixes in a Test innings at Rajkot. He was in India's title-winning squad at the 2024 T20 World Cup without playing a match.

Later he performed well against Bangladesh and New Zealand and scored a hundred in his first Test in Australia, at Perth's Optus Stadium, finishing as India's leading Test run scorer in 2024.