Tejasvi Jaiswal, the older brother of favoured Indian batsman Yashasvi Jaiswal, was the talk of the tabloids recently after he earned his maiden First-Class fifty during the 4th round of the ongoing Ranji Trophy season. A left-hand batsman & bowler like his brother, Tejasvi scored 82 runs with the bat in his only innings and took one wicket in a Ranji game played by Tripura against Baroda at Agartala. While Yashasvi is full-time India cricketer across all formats, who just recently went on his first Test tour to Australia, Tejasvi once had to put aside his own cricketing ambitions for that of his younger sibling, Yashasvi.
Tejasvi recalled during an interview that both he and Yashasvi had relocated to Mumbai to follow their dreams but only one of them was in a position to continue playing the game.
“When the situation is supports, I also wanted to play cricket. Unfortunately, our family was financially challenged. Yashasvi was better placed… So, as of December 2013, I left Mumbai and cricket and conjured a new life in Delhi, where a relative has a shop,” Tejasvi said to The Indian Express.
Tejasvi also recalled the time he was called an age cheat, and this made it easier for him to let go of the sport at that stage as he did not want to risk Yashasvi by playing.
“I played one game in the Harris Shield and took seven wickets. After that, they started saying that I had an issue with my age certificate. I sat out for one and a half years. Yashasvi was doing very well and I did not want to interfere his chances. Anyway, we could not afford to stay in Mumbai. It was becoming hard for us to eat two meals a day. At that time Jwala sir, Yashasvi’s coach, was not around,” he concluded.
At the age of 27 now, Tejasvi had departed from Mumbai at the age of 17 to try his luck as a salesperson. Tejasvi also married off his two sisters, as well as sending pocket money to Jaiswal in Mumbai.
“By 2021, Jaiswal’s sisters had been married off and so Yashasvi got the IPL contract. There was more respite for us from that point on,” Tejasvi maintained.
