Yashasvi Jaiswal becomes India's 17th centurion on Test debut

Yashasvi Jaiswal has become the 17th India batter to score a century on Test debut, and the first to do so outside Asia in more than 21 years. The 21-year-old reached the milestone on the second afternoon of the Dominica Test, bringing it up with a standing sweep for a single off the part-time bowling of fellow debutant Alick Athanaze.

Jaiswal opened the batting alongside captain Rohit Sharma, with Shubman Gill moving down to the No. 3 spot vacated by Cheteshwar Pujara's axing. When he reached his hundred, off 215 balls, India were 205 for no loss after they had bowled West Indies out for 150 on day one.

"It was an emotional moment for me," Jaiswal said after the day's play. "I enjoyed it quite a bit. I am still batting so I will try to play for as long as possible. This is just the start of my career, so now it will be about how focused and disciplined I can be going forward.

"My effort [on the third day] will just be on how I can give a good start to the team. I will just focus on my process and trust on what I have practiced. I just have to go and keep playing."

Jaiswal has shown a remarkable appetite for runs in every format he has played. When he was called up for this West Indies tour as part of an India side picked with an eye on the future, he had scored 1845 first-class runs at an average of 80.21, with nine hundreds in just 26 innings. His List A career of 32 games already includes a double-hundred. And he was the fifth highest run-getter in IPL 2023, with his 625 runs coming at a strike rate of 163.61. Jaiswal has now brought that appetite to Test cricket.

"I thinks it's about how I prepare mentally," Jaiswal said when asked about his preparations. "Of course, fitness is very important. I try to follow my diet and discipline and try to stay in good shape. And I practice the way I need to prepare. I keep trying to bat according to possible scenarios and how I can do well on the team. The effort is to just try and play match-winning knocks.

"I spoke to Rohit bhaiyya quite a bit while batting. He kept telling me how we can play on this wicket and where the runs can come from. And even before the game, the way he told me 'you have to do it, you are the only person', I kept thinking about that and how I can get my runs."

West Indies tested both openers even as they struggled to separate them, on a slow pitch that offered the spinners both turn and bounce. Right through his innings, Jaiswal was happy to show the patience he required to earn his run-scoring opportunities. He took 16 balls to get off the mark on the first evening, and began the second morning by shouldering arms five times in a row to Jason Holder. By the time he reached his hundred, he had left or defended 56 of the 104 balls he faced from West Indies' fast bowlers.

At the same time, he was also prepared to exploit gaps in the field with unorthodox shots. He got off the mark in Test cricket with an uppercut for four, and he reverse-swept Jomel Warrican against the turn for a boundary in the last over of day one.

When required to, Jaiswal was able to shift a gear down and see out difficult periods. Having hit seven fours while scoring his first 51 runs off 104 balls, he hit no boundaries and scored just 19 runs off his next 80 balls, a period during which spinners Rahkeem Cornwall and Jomel Warrican beat both openers multiple times with sharp turn.

Having got through that testing spell, though, and with Cornwall off the field with a chest infection, Jaiswal opened up after lunch: he rushed from 70 to 100 in just 31 balls, hitting four fours in that period including a dancing, inside-out drive off Warrican.

Of the 16 previous India batters to score centuries on Test debut, only two - Shikhar Dhawan in 2013 and Prithvi Shaw in 2018 - opened the batting. And only five scored their debut hundreds outside Asia, with Virender Sehwag the last to do so, in Bloemfontein back in November 2001.

Jaiswal's innings also extended a proud run for players representing his Ranji Trophy team: the last four Test-debut centurions for India have all been Mumbai batters, with Rohit, Shaw and Shreyas Iyer the three before Jaiswal.