PUDUCHERRY: Angkrish Raghuvanshi had a wry smile as he walked over towards the media at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Sunday evening after a hard-fought loss against the Tamil Nadu U23 outfit.
The Rest of India U23 batter, a double centurion, had spent the better part of Days three and four in the middle, trying to bring his team back into the contest after conceding the first innings lead. The result, however, did not go his way with the hosts chasing down the 149-run target in the last two sessions. "It was good fun. Honestly, I was enjoying my batting. It would have been even better had we won the match, so it's a bit bittersweet," he said with a smile.
For Raghuvanshi, the four days he spent in the middle — he scored 51 and 203 in the match — were just about enjoying his time in what he calls his “happy place”. The 22-year-old had clearly missed the 22 yards — the place where he feels he can express himself — after a long injury layoff.
In fact, in his own words, 16 of the last 36 months were spent in injury and rehab. From the highs of U19 World Cup triumph to IPL debut with Kolkata Knight Riders and Ranji debut for Mumbai — all in 2024 — Raghuvanshi spent the next two years dealing with injuries. A stress fracture in the back, a fracture in the right hand, followed by an injury in the left hand recently during IPL 2026. There was also a scary on-field injury during the 2025-26 Ranji Trophy, which ruled him out for most of the season. “There have been plenty of highs and lows, but I knew what I signed up for. injuries are an inevitable part of professional sport. At the end of the day, my passion for the game runs so deep that no setback can diminish my love for playing,” he reflected.
Through it all, the one person who stood by his side and pushed his limits was his coach and mentor Abhishek Nayar. Raghuvanshi called him “incredibly motivating”. To an extent, even during rehab, Nayar did not hesitate to push Raghuvanshi out of his comfort zone. “During my injuries, his rule was simple: find what you can work on rather than sitting around resting. When my back was injured, he told me, 'So what? You can still do bicep curls.' It was about focusing on other areas — visualisation, mental training, or conditioning. When I hurt my finger, he said, 'Your legs are fine, so keep running.' That mindset kept me moving forward,” Raghuvanshi explained.
It is a characteristic Nayar tried to inculcate in Raghuvanshi from a very young age. Having spent more than half his life (Nayar has worked with him since he was 11) working with the KKR head coach, for Raghuvanshi, it became a part of how he trains and looks at cricket. “Whether you get hit, your reaction to getting hit (is) less drama, more action. Those sort of things I try and do with people I work really closely with in any case. With Anki (Angkrish), he enjoyed it and took to it because he ended up staying a lot more with me. When you see a coach who is a little crazy and does all these things, you automatically think, "Okay, yeah, everything is like that. Life is like that, and this is how you live." So, it's just one of those things,” Nayar told this daily.
For the Mumbaikar, what stood out in Raghuvanshi was his willingness to work hard and enjoy the grind. “Working hard is such a cliche statement, but working hard is when it comes at your convenience and your peril, and when it comes when it's not convenient to you. The one thing that I realised with Angkrish is that now, when he had this recent injury, for him, the work never stops. When his finger got injured, and they put him in a cast, he was drilling with his other hand. For the past three months, he's only been practising... He was practising his wicketkeeping; he was practising his batting with his bottom hand. For him, it's almost like, 'no matter what is happening, I'm going to work myself out of this'," explained Nayar.
He calls it the “military mindset” — to keep fighting and doing what is necessary regardless of the outcome. “A lot of what I feel made Angkrish different is that I always believed his strongest tool in the future could be his mentality — the mentality to keep fighting for it. He was never touted as a very talented player or rated that way. I think it requires a certain amount of... in a lot of ways, a military mindset of just doing regardless of the outcome.
“Angkrish takes his time to open up, but cricket is one place where he finds the freedom to express himself. He's not carrying too much baggage right now, and the ability to immerse yourself in the so-called cliche process is very different from immersing yourself in the fight to find the right process to achieve success. Those are two very different things, and I think he is in the latter. I continue to feel and believe that he is still finding his peak. He is still figuring himself out, and a batter actually matures at the age of 24 or 25 and finds his feet regarding who he is, what he is, and what he can be. But if he manages to stay fit and avoids more freak injuries, the best of him is ahead of him,” Nayar elaborated.
And it was all visible during Raguvanshi’s marathon innings in Chennai. He had played in the Karnataka State Cricket Association's (KSCA's) K Thimmappiah Memorial Trophy, a red-ball multi-day pre-season tournament, but the match against TN U23 at Chepauk was a different kind of challenge. The 22-year-old kept things simple, saw the ball and reacted to it without thinking too much. Ask him what his goals for the season are, and the answer was simple: "While I have specific technical adjustments I'm refining, I don't set personal run targets heading into a season. My only goal is silverware. Whether I’m representing Parsee Gymkhana at club level or playing for Mumbai, the sole focus is contributing to winning tournaments."
As Nayar said, as long as Raghuvanshi manages to keep himself fit, the 22-year-old’s best is yet to come.
