Yash Dhull

A flamboyant right-handed batter from Delhi touted to be the next superstar after leading the U19 team to a World Cup win. Sounds familiar? That’s because it is, we’ve already witnessed the same narrative twice - first with Virat Kohli and then again with Unmukt Chand. We’ve also seen how this story can go down two very different paths; one saw Virat Kohli rise to global stardom while the other saw Unmukt Chand disappear into relative obscurity. Yash Dhull, however, is in control of this story and from what we’ve seen already, he’s done little but to impress.

Dhull not only led his team to the 2022 U19 Cricket World Cup title but he also managed to stand-out with his batting performance in a side that was effectively a cauldron overflowing with talent. He finished the tournament with 229 runs from 4 innings at an impressive average of 76.33 and his tally included a century against Australia that turned heads.

It didn’t take long for Dhull, who’d made his way through Delhi’s U14 and U16 teams, to get a call-up to the senior team. He made his first class debut in February 2022, just a couple of weeks after lifting the U19 World Cup in the West Indies, against Tamil Nadu and he didn’t set a foot wrong. He became only the third batter to make a century in each innings (113 & 113*) on Ranji Trophy debut after Nari Contractor for Gujarat in 1952-53 and Virag Awate for Maharashtra in 2012-13. He didn’t stop there though, his best score came in the form of an unbeaten double-hundred against Chhattisgarh and it was an innings under distress as Delhi had been asked to follow-on and they were batting to save the game. Dhull ended the season as Delhi’s highest run-getter in the 2021-22 Ranji Trophy, amassing 479 runs from just 6 innings at an astonishing average of 119.75.

The Delhi Capitals (Daredevils then), who’d made the mistake of letting Virat Kohli go way back in the first edition of the IPL, picked Dhull up in the 2022 IPL Auction.

Written by Anurag Hegde