On April 24 last year, India officially supplanted mainland China as the world’s most populous country, an event coinciding with milestone man Sachin Tendulkar’ 50th birthday. India’s literal one-in-a-billion megastar, Tendulkar’s legacy lies not just in the numbers he stacked up, but in the philosophy his success gave birth to: the idea that this titanic country can throw up the world’s greatest player from within its
million folds. Virat Kohli has since held that mace.

Today the sheer scale and range of India’s talent pool is beyond comprehension. Just this month, a 12-year-old Bihar left-hander made his first-class debut in the Ranji Trophy. For context, even Sachin was 14 when he first walked out for Mumbai. India’s obsession with the sport is closely linked to its fascination with hero stories – the idea of one rising over the rest to lead the way is a tantalising fantasy. Mediocrity has no place anymore; and the younger you are, the better the story. There’s a never-ending quest for the next Sachin, the next Virat. It’s relentless and giddying.

Kohli’s stardom sprang from the U19 World Cup in 2008, also the birth year of the IPL. The stratospheric nature of the man’s fame and wealth has come to seem intrinsically linked to the tournament’s burgeoned power and heft, combining to symbolise the hegemonic apogee of sporting-commercial success. The rest of the game can only imagine what it looks like from up there.

Breaking through as a teenage Indian cricketer sounds like the best thing in the world, but it can also feel like the worst. Prithvi Shaw has seen both sides. Prophesied as the next Sachin by the ICC and several others ahead of the 2018 U19 World Cup, Shaw duly captained that India team to the title with the number 100 emblazoned on his back, and waltzed into the senior team, making a 99-ball hundred on his Test debut in 2018. But thereafter the merriment stopped. By Shaw’s own admission, the heady concoction of wild success, jarring rejections and off-field controversies has caused serious cracks in his personal life.

“People say a lot of things about me,” Shaw told me last July. “But those who know me, know how I am. I don’t have friends, I don’t like to make friends. This is what’s happening with this generation.

“You can’t share your thoughts with anyone. If you ask me personally, it’s very scary. Darr lagta hai aajkal [I am scared these days] to share my thoughts. Agle din social media mein aa jaata hai [It all gets posted on social media the next day]. I’ve very few friends, only a couple of friends, and even with them I don’t share everything, only a few things.”

His love for the game kept him going, and he has been scoring heavily at the U-25 level, but has played just one Ranji Trophy game for Mumbai to date, considered one of the toughest sides to get into. With seniors like Ajinkya Rahane still in the Mumbai squad, certain spots remain out of reach.

“I’ve seen a lot of athletes, especially at that age: they only think about cricket – that’s the only driving force,” says Swaminathan about teenagers. “They’re not thinking about anything else. And you know how cricket is – anything can happen.

“You may be the best and you may not get selected, because that day, you may or may not end up playing as well as you should have. Or you normally would have. Because of that, the pressure is too much for them. At any age, cricket pressure is a lot. But at that particular age [teenage], I think there’s a lot of pressure from home also.

“On one side, they [family] may end up saying: it’s cricket, you have to give it a shot, no matter what, we’ll support you – and that also is pressurising sometimes. And on the other side, they might end up asking them [the kids] to make a decision.”

“They may not really wait until they can actually peak or may get another chance. So there’s the pressure of ‘Can I opt for this? Or am I supposed to change my career? What do I do?’ And there’s a lot of identity crisis also now, you don’t know where you want to identify yourself. That’s something I’ve seen a lot with these young cricketers.”

It can’t be an easy ride, but today, these teenagers have opportunities like never before. The India U19 setup, helmed for years by current senior head coach Rahul Dravid, has been instrumental in creating an impressive pathway.

Ratra explains the structure: at the state level, there are two main U19 competitions – Cooch Behar Trophy (four-day cricket) and Vinoo Mankad trophy (one-day cricket). Based on their state performance, 25 players each are divided into NCA camps, now with the addition of a sixth from the North-East zone. In all, about 150 players get an opportunity to go forward.

Ratra notes how the batches are mixed miscellaneously – earlier, they used to be representative of their zone, and each camp would have their own kind of culture. Now, all camps have players from multiple zones.

These teams play 5-10 leagues matches to bring down the shortlist to 18 each. “They also keep a few players who are not eligible to play U19 to maintain competition for the youngsters [each player can only play one U19 World Cup].”

A country-level National Cricket Academy camp is then conducted, choosing the 25 best players for the India U19 team. Beyond the state U19s, 30-35 more players are added to the existing batch to create the Men’s U19 ODI Challenger Trophy squads. At the recent quadrangular series against England and Bangladesh, India U19 had two teams – A and B – with 15 players each. Players are rotated to expand the opportunity pool.

It isn’t limitless though. The talent runs deeper, and so do the eyes. The IPL model, despite its mad money and obvious ills, can also be a fruitful talent spotter. IPL scouts are able to fill the gaps that the BCCI can’t reach, going remote in the quest for a differentiating factor. Additionally, the IPL template is being rehashed at a rapid rate by state teams, some of whom have set up their own T20 leagues.

Now, even if the traditional path can be a hard one to climb, there are still alternatives, albeit tilted towards the shorter format. Hyper-local scouts and regional T20 leagues are pushing boundaries, tapping into India’s unswept corners. The next generation of cricketers could be defined by how deep the system runs.

In December, Robin Minz became the first indigenous player to make it to the IPL, handpicked by the Mumbai Indians scouts after scoring heavily in the zonal U19s. He now has an INR 3.6 crore contract without playing a game of professional cricket.

Prince Choudhary too hasn’t played any senior cricket yet, but now has an IPL gig thanks to the East Delhi Premier League, a local T20 tournament organised by cricketer-turned-politician Gautam Gambhir in his political constituency.

Former India U19 batter Sameer Rizvi, now 20, dubbed the ‘right-handed Suresh Raina’, made his state debut four years ago, but couldn’t quite capitalise on it. Now, through the Uttar Pradesh T20 League where he struck at 188.88, Rizvi is back in the spotlight. A whopping INR 8.4 crore IPL deal, the second-most expensive among all Indian players in the auction, tells you how a slight detour isn’t so bad anymore.

Gone are the days when future cricketers sprung out of traditional powerhouses – Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, et al. We’re now delving further into India’s layers, and drilling out even more gold. It’s glitzy and murky at the same time.

India’s next one-in-a-billion megastar could emerge from any of the 38 teams that play first-class cricket, or through the U19 set-up designed to prepare teenagers, or one of the several T20 leagues, the unofficial talent-hunters of the sport, or elsewhere. Whoever it is will need more than mere talent to flourish.

Welcome to India: cricket’s great, grand colosseum. Where only the strongest and most nimble survive.