IPL Auction: Meet Delhi’s Priyansh Arya, six-hitting machine who went to Punjab Kings for Rs 3.80 crore

Sanjay Bharadwaj recollects how he had to change his coaching style for Priyansh Arya, who was obsessed with hitting sixes from a very young age. Bharadwaj, who has coached the likes of Gautam Gambhir, Amit Mishra, Joginder Sharma and Unmukt Chand, calls him a product of the T20 era.

“All my life, I have told my students to play in the V, and If I remember correctly when it came to Priyansh, I never stopped him from playing the aerial shots. Initially, I did give him dressing down but I realised that’s his strength and I gave him complete freedom, and he never looked back,” Bharadwaj tells The Indian Express.

On Monday, the 23-year-old from Delhi, who is fresh from hitting a 43-ball 102 against Uttar Pradesh in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, bagged a Rs 3.80 crore contract by the Punjab Kings on the second day of the IPL mega auction in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

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“After the auction, when he called me I told him that they have given you Rs 3.80 crore, you give them back Rs 30 crore with your performances,” Bharadwaj adds.

Arya, who was the top-scorer for Delhi in last year’s Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy with 222 runs at the strike rate of 166.91, grabbed eyeballs in the inaugural Delhi Premier League. Playing for South Delhi Superstarz, Arya slammed 608 runs in 10 innings with a whopping strike rate of 198.69, with two centuries and four fifty-plus total.

“In the DPL he also hit six sixes in one match. Sometimes when you see such talent, you have to give them freedom. He will frustrate you but he will win you matches,” says Bharadwaj.

Bharadwaj took Priyansh under his wings when he was 7 years old.

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“Sanjay sir is like a god to us. From the time when he joined his academy. At 6 in the morning, Sanjay sir will pick him up from the house and then in the evening drop him off as well. It continued for eight years,” says Priyansh’s father Pawan Arya, who is a school teacher at Delhi’s Government Sarvodaya Vidyalaya, Lancer Road near Vishwavidyalaya metro station.

Growing up in Ashok Vihar New Delhi, Priyansh got all the freedom when it came to cricket but his parents, both teachers by profession, made sure that he did well in his studies also.

“He was seven when he said, he wants to play cricket. I was fine with that but since I am a school teacher and my wife (Radha Bala Arya) is also a school teacher, we made sure that he gets good education,” says Pawan.

Pawan has no idea how many sixes his son has scored in the last match, but he remembers his son’s marks by heart.

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“He has completed BA from Swami Shraddhanand College and scored 67% in the under graduation. It was all his hard work. Now he is pursuing post-graduation from Delhi University,” he says.

Priyansh had already made a promise. “Last year only, he told me ‘Papa is saal IPL contract aa gaya toh aap aur mummy retirement le lena (If I will get the IPL contract this year, you guys should take early retirement),” laughs Pawan.

However, despite giving trials at 6-7 academies, Priyansh had failed to get an IPL contract until now. “He was disappointed like any young kid,” recalls Bharadwaj. “I played with his ego and told him, you are not consistent enough. If you will perform one in five matches, no one will pick you. Something snapped inside him and I saw that in the DPL, with scouts watching, he went berserk. And then after hitting a century in one of the matches, he told me ‘Sir, ab toh lenge (now they will pick me).”

Apart from hitting sixes, Priyansh was also very fond of current Team India coach Gautam Gambhir.

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“When I was a kid, I used to watch GG sir training in our academy. I never spoke to him, only when I came to the Ranji Trophy camp. Growing up, he was my idol,” Arya had told reporters on the sidelines of a DPL match, earlier this year.

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