Jay Bista-The Hybrid Cricketer fortunate to witness the best of both the worlds!

When you talk about cricket in Mumbai, there are two types of batsman. The first breed is the group of current senior players of Mumbai who have growned up watching as well as playing Red Ball Cricket. The ones who are known for their traditional cricketing shots, classy batting and old school technique. The 2^nd breed is thriving of energetic youngsters who will soon be the future of Mumbai as well as Indian Cricket.

The 2^nd breed of youngsters are completely different personalities with them putting more emphasis on white ball cricket and its not their fault either as T20’s are played more than Tests and ODI’s in today’s era. They prefer to play faster, they have the whackiest of shots and for them playing fast is not just a necessity but it’s their natural game.

And when we talk about Jay Bista, he is the fortunate hybrid Cricketer with the best of both the worlds. Born on 23^rd December 1995 , at the age of 23, Jay is right there at the middle of two generations where he gets to see two different worlds of cricket. With experienced team mates like Suryakumar Yadav, Siddhesh Lad, Aditya Tare, Shreyas Iyer & Dhawal Kulkarni, Jay gets to witness proper classical red ball cricket whenever he gets a chance to represent the Mumbai team in the longer format of the game. Jay gets to see the sanctity of test cricket, the nitty-gritties of patience, solid technique, classical shots from the 1^st breed of his senior mates while he has his own game of wizardy with the bat & athletic fielding abilities making him a perfect recipe for a modern day t20 player.

With the advent of T20 Cricket rising, new shots being innovated every day and playing fast & furious being the latest trend, Jay is well versed with that world of cricket too with aggressive brand of batting being his natural game.

In a candid interview with Cricketgraph, we throwed upon a lot of questions at him which he gracefully answered:

When we asked him how it all started, Jay said “From the age of 2, i was in to this game as my mom had told me from that age itself I was crazy for the game. I started practicing from the age of 8 but when I was 12, that’s when I started thinking about it professionally”

Born & brought up in Mumbai, the 23yr old studied at Bhadra New High School and later went to the famed Shardashram Vidyamandir School which has given Mumbai some of the finest first class & national level cricketers. Jay finished his further studies from Ramniranjan Jhunjhunwala College while he is getting trained under coaching of Vinod Raghavan Sir.

Jay has represented Mumbai team at U14, U16, U19, U23 as well as the senior team while he plays club cricket representing Victory CC in Mumbai. When we asked him to share some of his most memorable performances, Jay shared with us- “Getting 136 something last year in my comeback game against Saurashtra, a double hundred in the finals of U23 One Day Tournament, a 4^th innings ton of 126 runs while chasing vs Baroda and my recent hundred in T20 mumbai (where he scored 110 off mere 60 balls for Sobo Supersonics) are some of my memorable performances so far.

Known for his eccentric and innovative shots including his famous version of “Bista Scoop”, Jay feels thankful to his parents and Coach Vinod Raghavan Sir for whatever he has achieved so far. When we asked him his long term goals, Jay smartly answered” –“I believe in living in the present, I don’t have a long term plan, I just want to win games for whichever teams I play for and keep performing consistently”

Team Cricketgraph wishes him all the luck for a great career ahead as he keeps entertaining one and all with his risqué shots and stylish batting.