Manal Chauhan started playing cricket for a simple reason — he wanted to bunk school.

He would tell his parents he was going to school and head off to play cricket instead. “At that time, I was not that interested in the sport, but I kept playing,” Manal told The Hindu ahead of Monday’s second youth ODI between India under-19 and the Australian colts here.

“Gradually, I realised that there were age-group divisions and that you move forward through them and then play for the State. I became very interested in it, so I started giving it my full time.”

The boy from Morena has since led Madhya Pradesh to its maiden Cooch Behar Trophy title and made his India u-19 debut on the Sri Lanka tour, scoring 150 and an unbeaten 51 in the second youth Test.

But it wasn’t a smooth ride. After a decent Vinoo Mankad Trophy campaign, the all-rounder missed out on the u-19 World Cup. “I was very demotivated because I wanted to play the World Cup. At that time, I did not know that there would be further bilateral series like this,” he said.

His parents and coaches told him there would be more opportunities. “I thought that, at least, I would win the red-ball tournament for MP. I did not know that I would come this far from there.”

Madhya Pradesh did win the Cooch Behar Trophy. Then came the India call-up.

“The biggest learning has been that things will keep going up and down in life, but you have to stick to your work ethic,” he said.

Chandrakant Pandit has helped him work on the mental side of the game, while India u-19 coach Yere Goud taught him to forget mistakes and move on.

Manal is doing just that, taking it one step at a time.

Match starts at 9 a.m.