From the Pujara school of cricket, how Samarth Vyas rose as a six-hitting outlier

There was one important rule at the Railway ground in Rajkot, where Cheteshwar Pujara's father, Arvind, used to give cricket training to youngsters till 2013 - 'you can't hit the ball in the air; if you do, you are out of the practice'.

But whenever Arvind was busy talking to someone, an impish nine-year-old would try his luck, loft one, and look around with fear to see if his coach saw him. Sometimes he got away with it. On other days, someone would shout "Watch it!" with the ball in the air and Arvind would catch and punish him.

Pujara was trained in the same philosophy at the same ground and it earned him the tag of "the wall" of Indian men's cricket. Almost every bowler he has faced would have been irritated at least once by how happy he is not to play an aggressive shot until the ball is almost begging for it.

That nine-year-old, Samarth Vyas, now 27, recently earned his maiden call-up for the Deodhar Trophy from West Zone but not for holding back. He has a strike rate of 150.58 in domestic T20s. In the 2022-23 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT), he hit 22 sixes, the most for any player, more than the likes of Prithvi Shaw and Ruturaj Gaikwad.

Samarth has been one of the most consistent batters in List-A for the last four years. In 2023, he became only the fifth player to hit a double-century in the Vijay Hazare Trophy (VHT), smashing a 131-ball 200 against Manipur. He hit three fifties in the Ranji Trophy too as Saurashtra completed a double of VHT and Ranji titles.

With the ability to tee off against the new ball and, in his own words, "a God-gifted bat swing", Samarth has now earned the right to a bit of special treatment when he visits the Cheteshwar Pujara Cricket Academy, 16 km away from Rajkot, which Arvind opened after retiring from Railways in 2013 for similar cricket training.

"Even today, when I hit so many sixes in T20s if I bat there and lift a shot, he'll still scold me [and say] don't hit when there's no need for it," Samarth told Sportskeeda in an exclusiv interview. "Even though he knows I am a hard-hitter, I still control my shots due to his fear. But yes, he now has the idea that it hard-hitting is my natural game so he’s OK with it. Others don't have that permission!"

Samarth was brought to Arvind's old training ground by his sports-minded father who played table tennis and basketball in his prime. His mom wanted him to focus on his studies but he wasn't up for it. So the family reached an arrangement where Samarth had to clear at least 12th before being allowed to fully focus on cricket.

Once that happened, his father took care of all his cricketing needs, while his mother made sure he ate and slept well and didn't get too distracted.

"That was the culture at home," Samarth said. "They always said, 'It's all on you now. You have to look after your own future. We are old now.' They kept me focused by telling me, 'You are not well-educated and the only other option is a Rs. 12-15000/month job which you don't want to do. So just give your 100% for the 5-10 years then we'll see what happens.'"

At 20 Samarth made his Saurashtra debut in all formats. Unlike many others of his generation and most from Arvind's academy, his career started with a T20 against Gujarat in the 2014-15 SMAT. He played at number four and only scored 10 (11). Saurashtra lost and couldn't go ahead in the tournament.

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The big switch from middle order to top order and the Cheteshwar Pujara connect

However, in November he made his first-class debut in the Ranji Trophy against Kerala and scored 54 (90) in the first innings followed by a List-A debut the next month in Pune against Bengal. The latter set his career rolling in many ways.

Bengal put up 243 in 50 overs and had an experienced bowling attack of Ashok Dinda, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, and Manoj Tiwary. Samarth had only sat down in the dressing room when Saurashtra coach Shitanshu Kotak asked him if he would open, a position he had rarely played in before.

"For a second I looked at him and then said, 'Yes, yes I'll do, sir.' It's an opportunity after all, wherever it is. He said, 'You'll have to play 50 overs'. I said I'll play," Samarth recalled.

He went on to score 94 (103), hitting seven fours and six maximums in a 136-run partnership with Sheldon Jackson. Both openers got out in quick succession but Pujara made sure the team won by six wickets with an unbeaten 50 (50).

Samarth has seen Pujara — or his 'Chintu bhai' — and his hard work from the latter's under-19 days, which is also the reason why he saw him more like a friend and not an established India player. All that changed in those two debuts.

"Even though I respect him like the rest of India because of how good a human he is, I never showed that to him because I don't know how to," Samarth said. "But when he came to bat that day, I was waiting and it sprung up in my mind, "Woah, you are going to play with Cheteshwar Pujara bhai".

"Then One-Day and white-ball I was used to playing but in red-ball cricket, where he's 'The Wall' and has such a big reputation, when he came to bat with me in that format, I literally had goosebumps: "I am playing red-ball cricket with Cheteshwar Pujara, Chintu bhai!" Samarth added.

Samarth said Pujara, though contrasting in style, has never tried to restrict his natural aggression. He blindly trusts whatever minor advice the senior pro gives him while batting because he feels they are Arvind's lessons trickling down.

"I just implement whatever he says and look at him and he gives me a thumbs up and I feel I am doing it right," Samarth said.

To make the connection even special, Pujara was also there when he reached his double hundred.

"Recently, I posted a video of that 200 and he was the one at the non-striker's end," he said. "'I've seen that video a lot of times on Instagram, seen him clapping for me with the bat. [It's a big thing that] I have shared that moment with him!"

This 200 VHT, a 22-sixes season in the SMAT, and playing his best innings in the Ranji Trophy (97 vs Maharashtra) got Samarth the closest he had ever been to his long-elusive dream, the IPL, but he still had a long probe to go through to turn into a reality.

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IPL, the auction, and injury

A fan of Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings because of Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni, respectively, Samarth got called up for trials by nine franchises (except Royal Challengers Bangalore) ahead of IPL 2023.

He had done the same for the past many years and knew that this might be one of his last chances.

"There's an age for every cricketer where if he has to play for a long time, he needs to get picked at least by that age. I also had that dream. But it went past me from very close for two-three years. This year... it was such a busy schedule that if today I am giving a trial in one city, I can't even check into a hotel in that city because I have to finish the trial and go to another city and give a trial for them, then again leave late night from there because there's another trial in a third city," Samarth said.

The most positive signs were from SunRisers Hyderabad where the then-scout Hemang Badani had seen Samarth play a lot and asked him to just "bat naturally" at the trial. Still, auction day came with a truckload of jitters.

Samarth had watched all of the previous auctions from home, either seeing himself go unsold or not even having his name included in the list. So when this year's auction coincided with the last day of a Ranji Trophy match against Maharashtra in his hometown he decided to change it up and watch it from the dressing room.

"Two-three friends got picked up first then my name came and I was almost going unsold and the hammer was almost down so my inner voice said, 'Please someone (raise your paddle)', but just then (Kavya Maran) ma'am at SRH raised her paddle," Samarth said. "I threw the remote and shouted very loudly in the dressing room alone."

Seconds later Samarth's phone started ringing. He picked up his mom's call first and heard her cry and say, "Jaldi, kidhar hai? Ghar pe aa" (Where are you? Come home quickly). He then called his dad to simply say "I am finally selected".

When he went home, his mother welcomed him with the customary puja plate along with all of their neighbors, who had also seen Samarth live outside seven months a year, travel, and spend most of his time on the ground, even in Rajkot.

"All those people, the ladies, used to gather in the evenings and talk about my performances and show papers where I had my name in. They were as happy as my family," he stated.

For the first few days at SRH, Samarth lived his dream. He stole looks at Brian Lara, Muthiah Muralidaran, and Dale Steyn, thinking about his journey from seeing them on TV to sharing a dressing room. But he wasn't nervous.

"The first thing I said to myself was, 'Saale tu kahan aagaya hai?' (Where have you come, you bastard?)," Samarth recalled. "Then I said, 'Yahi pe toh aana tha' (this is where I belong)."

The happiness was short-lived. What could've been two months of learning and improvement was cut short into a few days. On the last ball a practice match after SRH's first match of the season, where Samarth didn't play, he got hit by a yorker on his shoe from pacer Karthik Tyagi and suffered a campaign-ending injury.

"Even at home, I used to watch SRH's matches, nothing else," he said. "I never watched a lot of cricket since childhood so I just used to watch SRH and hope that we win and go the distance so that if we qualify, my fracture might heal by then and I'll have the chance to make a comeback to the team. But we couldn't do that."

Signed for just 20 lakh, many had called him one of the steals of the IPL 2023 auction. And steal he might have been because there was all the chance in the world to make a debut. SRH scored the least runs in the powerplay in IPL 2023 and had the second-worst strike rate in the first six overs, ultimately finishing last.

Samarth rejoined the squad for their final two games for injury assessment and rehab. His takeaway from the season was a chat with Badani about batting technique and the improvements he can make before the next season.

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... and also an MS Dhoni autograph

Samarth said his "biggest regret" of the season was not being able to meet Dhoni and Tendulkar. He had even convinced Chennai Super Kings all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja to make him meet Dhoni after the SRH-CSK game when he joined Saurashtra for a short time in the 2023 Ranji Trophy.

But when he had to leave two weeks before the two sides met, Samarth left a jersey and asked teammate Anmolpreet Singh to get it signed somehow.

"I called Anmol three times before the match to tell him to take the jersey. I even asked Sanvir Singh if Anmol took the jersey. I had asked two or three people for that, to just get me the signature somehow. Then Anmol replied that it was done. At that moment I just thought, "I am injured? Never mind. I have no regrets," Samarth recalled.

Samarth was also one of the many millions whose days and lives got better when Dhoni announced after the IPL 2023 final that he might play another year.

"I haven't met him. It's my dream, what else? It's everyone's dream to meet him and get a photo clicked with him. I am that mad but this is not the time to express that feeling, I'll save it till later. I was hoping that he doesn't retire this year. I don't know if he has taken retirement or not but it looks like I'll get the chance to meet him," he said.

For Samarth to make sure SRH retains him (or some other franchise picks him if they don't), he'll have to show 2022-like consistency in all formats, starting with the Deodhar Trophy, which will start on July 24.

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Another dream

However, the celebration and hype for his IPL selection was such that when he was announced in the West Zone squad for one of the most prestigious 50-over tournaments which is returning after four years, the atmosphere at his home was "normal", so much so that he had to explain the context to his mother.

"So I called my mom and said, 'Mummy, the Deodhar trophy is my childhood dream. IPL is not the only thing. Deodhar trophy is also a dream which very few people get to achieve and I am closer to that childhood dream.' Then only she came round and said, 'Wow, that's good,'" Samarth recalled.

West Zone have not only got a hard-hitter but someone who always keeps the team above himself. And both these qualities are symbiotic as he believes that a quick 30 would help his team more than a run-a-ball 50 in white-ball cricket and if the team wins, the selectors will notice it and thus its best-contributing players.

The last grain of doubt about the value of his high-risk cricket is cleared by his Saurashtra captain Jaydev Unadkat.

"Jaydev bhai has told me that, "Whenever you have a doubt in your mind, always take the positive step" and never go on the back foot," Samarth said. "He always motivates us that whenever there's this either-or situation, we should go with our inner gut feeling because he's there to back us. If I play a selfish innings and get out for 50-60, he will not appreciate it because he'd know that I didn't play according to the team's requirement. But if I score just 30-40 runs and give the team a good start, he'll appreciate it."

What helps is both men — after years of consistent showing in domestic, Unadakat recently played his third Test for India — believe in giving their 100% of the field and that there's no point in regretting once you are out of it.

"Whatever you want to do, whatever talent you want to express, it has to be done then and there," Samarth said. "So I just think positive and back my game. If I keep self-doubts even after playing so much cricket, then there's no point in the hard work and dedication of all these years."

Some players can lose their focus after having a year as good as Samarth did. However, now only does he have the realization that he still has a long way to go, but he also understands that 2022 could've been better too.

"People say, 'It was very nice, you scored a 200' but even after that my total is 433 (443) only," Samarth said. "Even after such a good start if I am stuck at 400-odd... I made 200 in one innings, my average and runs in other matches were very less. I don't like flying in the air when people talk highly about me. I know my ability and I could've done much better. I made 400 runs but I could've made 600 because there were a lot of innings where I didn't score much."

A similar issue has plagued his first-class career too, where despite making his debut eight years ago, he has only featured in 16 matches, scoring 508 at an average of 20.32. When asked why the team management didn't give him more than a couple of matches until this year, Samarth preferred to look inwards.

Samarth admitted that though he believes that quick runs benefit the team even in red-ball cricket, he has sometimes lost his wicket at crucial stages with poor shots.

"I am yet to prove myself in red-ball cricket, that I can score big. Yes, I have gotten only one or two matches sometimes but that's also my mistake that I haven't been able to grab those opportunities by taking the team's and my individual score to a big number," he stated.

This year, he batted mostly after number five with a slight license to attack and he finally didn't look out of place in the red-ball team. Samarth would hope that this role clarity and the bit of success he has shown in the position is only just the start.

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So Samarth, how do you keep yourself motivated?

As it would be for any domestic cricketer on the wrong side of the 20s, Samarth has noticed that a lot of his teammates, including juniors, are either settled in an IPL team or fighting for a place in the national side.

There are doubts because the national selectors are looking at players in their early 20s. There's also some hope that, after Suryakumar Yadav's debut at 30, if you perform exceptionally well, they might choose experience over flair.

But how do you keep yourself going? Samarth's mother once worriedly told him that there are 100s of crores of players with the same dream. It's the same today. Your performances are improving, you are doing well, getting selected in more exclusive tournaments but how do you keep yourself from thinking, "What if?"?

"I sometimes feel down that if by the end of the year or after two-three years if I am not selected somewhere, then what would I feel?" Samarth said. "All my peers would have played for India... [But] yes, you have to keep yourself motivated. There's no other option. If I get demotivated, then both the team and I will suffer and then at the end of my career, there will be regret as well. I just believe that no matter how much cricket I play, I shouldn't have any regrets. I just want to end my career with zero regrets."

He needs to stand out. Perhaps the only way to do that is stealing a look around, and lofting a few in the air for the joy of it, like that impish kid did 20 years ago.