Jayaprakash always wanted his child, son or daughter, to become a cricketer. His son Dega Nischal did not evince much interest in the game initially.
“One day, he asked me to get him a cricket bat. From then on he became interested and took to the game very seriously,” said Jayaprakash.
Well, a total of 601 runs in the Cooch Behar Trophy for the Karnataka under-19 team in the inter-state tournament this year has put Nischal, a right-handed opening batsman, firmly on the radar of talent scouts. Averaging 75, Nischal also had a double hundred and a century to his credit.
In the South Zone inter-zonal, he averaged 41.
“In fact, he was the youngest cricketer at age 15 to score a century in the first division league when turning out for Jawahars,” his dad added.
Nischal was adjudged as the best batsman of the 2011-12 S A Srinivasan Trophy (under-25) tournament. His solid batting displays have fetched him 58 centuries, to date, in various tournaments organised by KSCA and BCCI.
The 19-year-old first year B.Com student of MES College is among India’s under-19 probables camp underway at NCA.
Nischal is capable of playing with a straight bat and has the temperament to stay at the wicket for long spells. In this era of quickfire knocks and breezy departures, this a welcome sign from a youngster and augurs well for his career and state cricket.
Often, he has carried his bat through in league or representative matches that he has played. He is equally good on the off and on side and has a lot of strokes up his armoury.
Nischal can play the seamers well and after seeing them off, he can attack the spinners as he has good footwork.
From the under-13 to the under-19 stage, Nischal has scored runs by the hat full, while captaining many of them. It is only a matter of time before he graduates into the higher levels and stakes a claim for a place in the state senior team.