Yashasvi Jaiswal and an exceptional understanding of how to score runs

Yashasvi Jaiswal is insatiable. When he is training in Talegao in Maharashtra at the Rajasthan Royals High Performance Centre, he can go through more than 100 overs of batting in one day. That's sidearm, bowling, manual throwing, all by different people from different angles with little or no breaks. In a two-hour net session with teams he is with, he can hog one net for upwards of an hour. He has been talked into being more mindful of other players' needs, which he has respected. So now he just waits for others to finish and takes the deliverers of balls back into the net at the end of the training.

A day before the Headingley Test, after all the media work had been done, all the reels made, he was there in the corner net with net bowlers and one sidearm thrower from the team. Those who work with him worry they need to find ways to sustain this voraciousness with his lean frame and historic nutritional deficiency as he grew up all alone and far away from home in Mumbai.

With some batters, this obsessive nature can prove to be detrimental, but Jaiswal has that balance right. He bats for the business of scoring runs not to perfect batting. He knows how to score runs. In a short career he has played innings of markedly different tempo and methods. As Rahul Dravid, the former India coach told me, Jaiswal says in almost every innings: "I like scoring runs, I know how to score runs and I'll do whatever it takes to score runs. Sometimes bat aggressively, sometimes bat defensively, sometimes play from middle stump, sometimes play from outside leg stump."

By the afternoon drinks break on his first day of Test cricket in England, though, Jaiswal's obsessiveness had begun to catch up with him. The support staff gave his arm under the arm guard a rubdown. His leading arm was cramping three hours into his innings on a pleasant day in Leeds.

It had already been an innings in which he had had to change his method dramatically. Jaiswal was 67 off 112 then, but he had had spurts: 19 off 20, then just 12 off 39, then 26 balls in the 40s. England weren't great with the brand-new ball, Jaiswal had no qualms flashing at them, but when they started bowling straight at his body, his limitations on the leg side showed up.

In the first 20 balls that Jaiswal faced, only two balls swung in or seamed in. He relished the room and the angle away. Then they started attacking the stumps more with a leg slip in place: 24 swung in or seamed in in the next 92. Add to it Josh Tongue's angle from around the wicket, tucking him up, hitting him on the body.

Jaiswal's control percentage was 90 in the first 20 balls, it fell to 71 for the next 92 balls. One of the reasons for low control numbers was that he kept missing the cut, but he was going so hard at it that it is hard to see how an edge would go to hand. Otherwise, he just fought through the period, keeping the pull and fend away even as Ben Stokes moved to one of the Bazball fields.

And then on came the cramps. Almost unnoticed, the intent went up as he realised he couldn't keep fighting all day. The first ball after that drinks was also the first ball of spin. You would imagine a forward-defensive to this full ball - 4.4m in front of the stumps - from almost any other batter, but Jaiswal hung back and managed to cut it for four. A flurry of runs, not visibly hurried, followed. Tongue was upper-cut for six, Shoaib Bashir lofted back over his head. By the time he reached the 90s, Jaiswal had had medical attention three times.

The third of those was a ferocious attempt at a cut that he missed. The umpires had a quiet word with him. Probably telling him he had to make a choice: play on without regular assistance or retire. Just like that out came two dismissive shots through the covers to reach 99. Then the single to get to a hundred in his first Tests in the West Indies, Australia and England to go with an 80 in his first in India.

It wasn't a free-flowing innings. It had phases of brilliance, spells of knuckling down, and just the sheer physical battle with himself. Only ten of the 101 runs he scored came on the leg side. The limited range of his strokes on the leg side has always been a focus, but not to this extent. He completely shelved the pull and the hook, and sweated on any room. There were periods he was denied room, but he was prepared to wait it out.

It was only when he began to cramp that an element of manufacturing shots appeared. It was just exceptional understanding of how to score runs and manage risk. Managing his body and his voracious appetite for hitting balls is an aspect he will still have to look at.