Cooch Behar Trophy Final: Karnataka’s Prakhar Chaturvedi breaks 24-year-old Yuvraj Singh’s record

In MS Dhoni’s biopic, there’s a famous dialogue from the protagonist, “Bahut mara, dhaaga khol diya ek dum (He smashed us all over the park),” about Yuvraj Singh’s 358 runs in the Cooch Behar Trophy final played between Punjab and Bihar.

Twenty-four years later, Karnataka’s Prakhar Chaturvedi walloped Mumbai team in the 2023-24 final with an unbeaten 404. The 358 Yuvraj scored at Keenan Stadium had stayed as a record for the highest individual score in a Cooch Behar Trophy final for more than two decades.

Batting first, Mumbai were bowled out for 380 runs and Prakhar’s knock was enough to help Karnataka win on the first-innings lead as they looted 890 for 8. Vijay Zol’s 451 not out for Maharashtra against Assam in the 2011-12 season remains the highest individual score in the tournament.

Sanjay Chaturvedi, Prakhar’s father, is a software engineer who now runs his own start-up, while his mother, Rupa Chaturvedi, is a technical officer in Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO).

Record-breaking knock! 👏👏

Karnataka’s Prakhar Chaturvedi broke records as he smashed 4⃣0⃣4⃣* in the final of the #CoochBehar Trophy against Mumbai 👌👌

Relive 📽️ his fabulous knock 🔽https://t.co/GCbjreLOhZ

#KARvMUM | @kscaofficial1 | @IDFCFIRSTBank

— BCCI Domestic (@BCCIdomestic) January 15, 2024

“We are from Ghazipur, Uttar Pradesh, but I have been living in Bengaluru for more than two decades now. I am an IIT BHU pass-out myself, and obviously, I wanted him to focus on his studies, but for the past couple of years, cricket has taken over. He has good grades in Class XII and is now in BA first year and is pursuing economics,” Chaturvedi tells The Indian Express.

“Like any kid in the apartment, he used to play cricket. One day, a gentleman in our society told me, ‘your son hits really well, why don’t you put him in an academy’. His son also used to play cricket. In 2017, we moved him to SIX Cricket Academy. SIX is based at the Padukone-Dravid Centre of Sports Excellence in Bangalore. Prakhar has represented the state U-16, now U-19. It is good to see that he is doing well in cricket, which he is really passionate about,” he says.

K Jeshwant, former Karnataka captain and coach under whom Prakhar has trained for the past six years, believes this knock will silence all his critics.

“The boy has to go through a lot. He was struggling to make it into the state U-19 team. Not many people believed in his ability. He has been a very good player for us,” says Jeswanth.

“Not only U-19, he was not selected for U-16 also. We had to make a presentation in front of the selectors to make them believe that he is a quality cricketer. I understand there is lots of competition. You can’t blame the selectors. To see the ability of a player, a coach or a selector must have a vision, you can’t rely on stats, even a computer can do that. Prakhar was performing but was not getting picked; they would give various reasons. Now he has shown what he is made of,” he adds.

Jeswanth feels the opener, who showed a tremendous amount of patience during his 638 balls stay at the crease, has got an excellent head on his shoulder and has the capacity to excel in all three formats.

“You have seen him batting in the longer version. You will be amazed when you see him in the white ball. He plays risk-free strokes, and without slogging, scores quickly. He scores all his runs beautifully with proper technique. He never scores ugly,” says Jeswanth.

“He can hit the ball a long way. You see his sixes, all three of them were long. He is famous for hitting big sixes in the Bengaluru circuit,” he says.

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The coach is also proud of the fact that seven of the 15-member Karnataka squad is from his academy. “Prakhar Chaturvedi, Dhruv Prabhakar, Samit Dravid, Agastya Raju, Samarth, Yuvraj Arora were in the playing XI, while Krishiv Bajaj was among the substitutes,” he says.

Prakhar’s father credits his son’s hard work, who would travel around 100 km every day for his cricket. “We live in Electronic City, while the academy is 50 km away in Devanahalli, where the academy is. It is like the other side of the city. He has done his hard yards. We saw the match on TV as well. Majaa aaya kaafi, bahut maara isne (Loved it, he played really well),” says Chaturvedi.

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