The people from Kanpur are generally sharp-tongued and don’t back down under provocation. India U-19 opener Adarsh Singh kept his inner Kanpur in check and never responded to the continuous sledging from Bangladesh seamers. After overcoming the initial oohs and aahs, the southpaw showed his determination in a classy 76 to take India to 251 for 7 and earn a 84-run win over Bangladesh.

His elder brother Ankit wasn’t surprised by the attitude and revisited the tough financial times in the family that has shaped Adarsh’s personality. During the lockdown their father and Ankit lost their jobs, their mother, who worked in an anganwadi, was the sole breadwinner, but father would sell a plot of land to put the money in Adarsh’s name so that he can continue his cricket pursuit. Adarsh knows the family struggle and gambit on his cricket, and isn’t going to throw his wicket, says his brother.

“Bura waqt tha (It was a difficult time),” Ankit, the brother, tells The Indian Express. “Our father used to work in a company that used to make Chinese jewellery. He used to earn Rs 25,000. I also lost my job. Adarsh was playing U-16. It was difficult to pay rent with our mother being the sole bread earner,” he recalls.

“I started giving private tuition to high school kids in Kanpur, but it was only enough to make a living. My father made a decision to sell a plot in the village, put the money in the bank under Adarsh’s name so that he doesn’t have to suffer. Later when cricket resumed and he also started getting match fees, things started to ease off a bit,” says Ankit. They had to earn the ire of relatives and neighbours for the decision.

Adarsh has been India’s best batsman leading into this World Cup. Tuesday presented the sternest test yet in his U-19 career — the team lost wickets intermittently (India were 31/2) after being put into bat and the seamers extracted bounce from the surface with the left-armer Maruf Mridha moving the ball both ways.

For his solid 76-run opening act, Adarsh Singh is adjudged the Player of the Match ????????

India U19 win their opening game of #U19WorldCup by 84 runs.

Scorecard ▶️ https://t.co/DFqdZaYujm#BoysInBlue | #BANvIND pic.twitter.com/DdQ1l2mfUP

— BCCI (@BCCI) January 20, 2024

The 18-year-old Adarsh was unfazed, overcoming an early period of struggle to stitch a match-winning 116-run stand for the third wicket with captain Uday Saharan (64). A couple of cameos from Aravelly Avanish (23 off 17 balls) and Sachin Dhas (26 off 20 balls) followed as India reached 251 for 7. Mridha was the pick of the bowlers for Bangladesh with a five-wicket haul. The only false shot Adarsh played cost him his wicket, but he displayed his courage and composure, virtues that are as essential as technique and skills.

“It was Adarsh’s stubbornness that forced my father to let him play cricket for one year with the condition that he would bid farewell to cricket and continue his studies if cricket did not work our. Ek saal mey UP U-14 mey aa gaya, agle saal captain ban gaya, fir peeche mud ke nahi dekha (Within a year, he was in the state U-14 side, became captain in the next, and hasn’t looked back since),” says the brother.

The Singh family hails from Newada Ishwari Singh, a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Jaunpur district and Narendra Kumar Singh shifted their base to Kanpur to give his children a good education.

“My father used to work in Kanpur, and we moved here. Then he got a job in Mumbai and my mother (Manju Lata Singh) got a job in Anganwadi, a rural childcare centre. My father shifted to Mumbai while my mother moved back to our village. In the meanwhile, I completed my engineering, got a job and Adarsh’s game had improved significantly,” narrates Ankit.

Then the lockdown came with a bag of troubles. Selling a plot to let his son play was not welcomed by the relatives and neighbours in Jaunpur.

“Rajputoon ka swabhimaan suna hai aapne (have you heard about the self-respect of Rajputs). People said in our caste we generally don’t sell land, even if we do, it is for studies and the daughter’s marriage. They were against my father because he was selling it for his son’s cricketing dream,” laughs Ankit.

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“Samay bada balwaan hota (time is very powerful). Slowly Adarsh started doing well, got picked for India and now the same folks are praising him. I am getting several texts and calls. Everyone is talking positively. People are enjoying and we are not able to watch it. Yahi zindagi ka sach hai (This is the truth of life),” he says.

If it was Adarsh and Saharan’s steely knocks that helped India put on a good total, it was the vice-captain and left-arm spinner Saumy Pandey (4/24) who choked Bangladesh in the chase. Mohammad Shihab (54) and Ariful Islam (41) were the only notable contributors.

Adarsh was adjudged player of the match for his feisty knock.

“There was help for the bowlers, so my plan was to play every ball as per its merit. We lost a couple of early wickets and when Uday came into bat, we just decided to milk ones and twos as the size of the boundaries are big,” Adarsh told the broadcasters about how he bided his time in the middle. Just like he and his family have done in life during a crisis.