If you travel to the city of Ludhiana, one would sing praises for the late Yashpal Sharma - one of the stars of the 1983 World Cup triumph. Today, Ludhiana has a new reason to celebrate cricket - Nehal Wadhera.

Carrying a similar hard-hitting tenacity in his veins, Nehal discovered his love for cricket at nine years of age. Born a month before Yuvraj Singh made his international debut in 2000, the young cricketer started taking notes of his idol’s stance, stroke-playing shots and on-field character and would model his game likewise.

Starting out, young and exciting

2017: Nehal continued to rise through the ranks for his state team of Punjab, playing the Vijay Merchant and Cooch Behar Trophy at the Under-16 level before progressing to the Under-19s in 2017. One of the early exhibitions of his talent came in the 2017-18 edition of the Cooch Behar Trophy, where he racked up 540 runs and scored as many as six half-centuries.

2018-19: Nehal Wadhera - the third Ludhiana player to represent India at any level after Yashpal Sharma and Gagandeep Singh - made his Under-19 debut for India in the first unofficial Test in Sri Lanka. Opening his account with a maximum off the fourth delivery he faced, he went on to score 82. He followed it with a 136-ball 64 in the second Test to cap off a memorable tour.

A few days after he returned, he would raise eyebrows again in a Dhruv Pandove Trophy match between Punjab U-19 and Mumbai in Mohali. A cover drive shot during his 78-ball 54 won praise from his dressing room and his U-19 coach Harjinder Singh.

“You can see glimpses of Yuvraj in him (Nehal Wadhera). There is an elegance, and his batting is effortless. His hand-eye-coordination is brilliant; the timing, the placement, everything is just perfect,” Harjinder said in an interview with the Times of India.

The star uprising ..

2021: Nehal Wadhera - playing for Punjab Cricket Club - bamboozled RBI (Mumbai) in a league match of the 26th All India JP Atray Memorial cricket tournament for the Trident Cup in Mohali with his 143-ball 171. The knock would be an individual record score that surpassed that previously set by Lalit Yadav (168 in 2019).

2022: It would be a year of highs for the southpaw. In April, there was no stopping Nehal as the Ludhiana prodigy steamrolled Bathinda during their Punjab Inter-District U-23 Cricket Championship semi-final fixture with 578 runs in 414.

The knock, laced with 42 fours and 37 sixes, struck down multiple records such as being the fastest to reach 200, 300, 400 and 500 runs in any level of recognised cricket and the most boundaries (fours and sixes combined) in a single innings of professional cricket - surpassing Brian Lara’s 72 (10 sixes and 62 fours) in his 501 not out against Durham in 1994.

Charanjit Bhangu, his childhood coach, looked at this knock and, mesmerised, said, “Yuvi ki yaad dila di!” according to Wisden.

The crowing of the Prince

2022-23: His exploits would not go unnoticed as Mumbai Indians bought Nehal for INR 20 lakh at the mini-auction in December 2022, and he celebrated it with a century (123) on his Ranji Trophy debut for Punjab against Gujarat in January 2023. Two games later, he went up a notch as he slammed his maiden first-class double hundred (214) against Madhya Pradesh. He ended a fine debut Ranji season with 376 runs in seven innings.

A hardworking yet patient cricketer, Nehal was handed one of the most significant breaks in his career with a debut with us against RCB. How did it go? 21 runs in 13 balls, which included one six smoked outside the Chinnaswamy stadium. And it didn’t end there. He notched his first T20 half-century (64) in a single-handed effort against CSK, and followed it up with a match-winning unbeaten 52 against RCB at the iconic Wankhede Stadium on May 9.

With 241 runs in 14 innings in IPL 2023, our man has made the selectors take note of him. And, with his inclusion in the North Zone team for the upcoming Duleep Trophy, we can confidently say that the stars are aligned for the new ‘Prince of Ludhiana’ to be the next Mumbai Indians star to make it big.