Bengaluru, February 18: Wake up at 3.30 in the morning, get ready for a morning practice session of around two hours, go to school, come back, practice alone under the supervision of his father, go the academy, come back, do homework and a bit of studies, dinner, sleep, repeat. With no time to waste, no time to get bored, a continuous tension and a fight for time between school and sports academy, individual practice sessions and academy net sessions, practice matches to play and an indomitable desire to play cricket at the highest level not just by this little boy but more so by his family especially his father, has paved the way for an outstanding young cricketing career so far - the career of India's leading run scorer in the Under 19 World Cup and the Player of the tournament - Shubman Gill.

Gill has rarely failed in his career. The teenager has shown an astonishing appetite for runs. Forget his numbers at the Under-19 level for India - an average of over 100 in 11 games - he can't recall failing for three innings in a row. The rise of Gill has been astounding and it reflects the amount of work a family has to put in in these modern times to help make a cricketer.

Gill's father is in fact the driver of the cricketing dream of Shubman who started playing cricket when he was just four years old. In a nation where there are enormous reasons to internal migration, Gill's family migrated so that the cricketing dream of their loved son and family could stay alive and he gets proper cricket training.

After the World Cup, Shubman has taken his form into the Vijay Hazare trophy as well, hitting a century for Punjab against the Karnataka side which is on top of the table, overshadowing the century by Indian regular KL Rahul. One thing is certainly clearly that it takes strenuous effort to produce a player worthy to compete at the highest level and at the age of 18, Shubman is certainly one of those.