With eight fours and three sixes, Dalal had raced to an 89-ball 79, and looked poised to breach the three-figure mark on debut, before a casual shot ended his stay. (Express photo by Amit Mehra)

Hiten Dalal was barely 13 when he made the journey from his hometown in Bahadurgarh, Haryana, to Sanjay Bharadwaj’s LB Shastri Academy in Delhi, and impressed his coach almost instantly.

“What struck me about Hiten was the natural aggression in his stroke-play,” Bharadwaj noted. Dalal settled at a hostel adjoining the academy, where he would balance cricket and academics. Sharing a room with pacer Kulwant Khejroliya played a part in shaping his cricketing aspirations.

While finishing high school from Kulachi Hansraj Model School and joining Khalsa College, Dalal continued to scorch score-sheets, progressing through various age-groups at a frenetic pace. Two years ago, when he was appointed captain of Delhi’s U-23 squad, he responded by scoring 468 runs, and was instrumental in clinching the CK Nayudu Trophy. His poise and confidence caught the selectors’ eye. With Unmukt Chand battling indifferent form and Kunal Chandela out with an injury, they handed Dalal an opportunity to kick-start his first-class career.

On the first day of Delhi’s Ranji opener, Dalal flayed a facile Himachal Pradesh bowling attack to all corners of the Feroz Shah Kotla. However, his flair and aggression ultimately proved to be his undoing. Crunching eight boundaries and three sixes, the 24-year-old had raced to an 89-ball 79, and looked poised to breach the three-figure mark on debut before a casual shot ended his vigil.

Apart from the opener’s early blitz, new vice-captain Dhruv Shorey too looked set to score a century. But his innings, too, was cut short on 88. However, the two knocks helped the home team take ascendancy for better part of the day’s play, before several instances of of inept shot selection stuttered their progress. At stumps, Delhi had meandered to 305/8, and Himachal Pradesh had made a semblance of a comeback.

Dalal came into the match in reasonable batting form, and had the opportunity to share the dressing room with the likes of Gautam Gambhir and coach Mithun Manhas, both of whom offered him a simple piece of advice. “Hiten, just go out and play your natural game. Don’t think that you have to play differently because this is your debut game and this is days’ cricket.” Even though the advice sounds a tad simplistic, Dalal knew that this approach had always reaped him dividends.

In the end, it was this aggression that turned out to be his nemesis. Inexperience that played a part because if Dalal had stayed on to score a century, Delhi would have gone past the 400-run mark. “I should have shown a bit more patience. Casual shot khel gaya. I missed my century, or the team would have been 400 not 300 as the scoreboard reads right now,” he observed. Bharadwaj expressed his dismay at the way his ward got out today. “I’m disappointed that he got out on 79 and missed out on his century.”

Despite that false note, Dalal displayed oodles of class in the morning session, when he lit up Kotla with his sizzling stroke-play. The confidence and poise was evident and the chance to share the stage with Gambhir did not overawe him. Their opening stand helped Delhi roar to 96 runs in the first hour’s play. A rather dubious umpiring decision ended Gambhir’s vigil for 44, but Dalal continued to put the Himachal attack to the sword in the company of Shorey, who matched the opener shot for shot. Their 66-run alliance, too, came at a fairly brisk pace. By the time Dalal departed, Delhi had sauntered along to 162/2 in the 33rd over, with all the time in the world to bury the opposition under a mountain of runs in the first innings.

But through a combination of some alert fielding and defensive bowling, Himachal choked Delhi. Captain Nitish Rana and Himmat Singh were out to rather tame dismissals, while Shorey marched on. Delhi’s firefighter, who scored a century in the Ranji final against Vidarbha last season, looked like he was on a similar mission. Through a 56-run stand for the fifth wicket with wicketkeeper Anuj Rawat, it looked like Delhi had weathered the storm by tea. But runs came in a trickle, as Himachal skipper Prashant Chopra applied the choke.

Delhi lost four wickets in the space of 12 overs in the final session. That was because their lower order lost their way in a bid to unshackle themselves. “Batting was easy during the morning session, but the game changed a bit in the afternoon as the ball turned a bit, and our batsmen threw their wickets away. The shot selection was awry,” Dalal summed up his team’s efforts.

Now Delhi will be hoping that Ishant Sharma whips up some magic when they come out to field on Day 2.

Brief Scores: Delhi 305/8 (Dhruv Shorey 88, Hiten Dalal 79) vs Himachal Pradesh (Mayank Dagar 3/57).