He bunked school for cricket, now Manal Chauhan is living the dream

Manal Chauhan led Madhya Pradesh to the Cooch Behar Trophy title for the first time. | Photo Credit: Shayan Acharya

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

He ‘did not like’ studying and would much rather spend his time on a cricket field. So when his coach, Rajesh Tomar, told him that taking cricket seriously meant focusing on one thing, Manal did not need much convincing.

He would tell his parents he was going to school and head off to play cricket instead. At first, he was not particularly serious about where the game might take him. Then he started understanding the pathway.

“At that time, I was not that interested, but I kept playing,” Manal told Sportstar. “Then, 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.”

Since then, the boy from Morena in Chambal has led Madhya Pradesh to its maiden Cooch Behar Trophy title, ending a wait stretching back to the tournament’s inception in 1945-46. He also made his India Under-19 debut on the Sri Lanka tour, scoring 150 in the first innings and 50 in the second essay of the Youth Test.

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However, things were not smooth. Madhya Pradesh played five matches of the Vinoo Mankad Trophy and the campaign was only “okay”. Then Manal missed out on the U-19 World Cup, which India eventually went on to win.

“I was very demotivated because I wanted to play the U-19 World Cup. At that time, I did not know that there would be further India series and bilateral series like this,” the 18-year-old said.

His parents and coaches told him not to worry.

“They told me that it was okay and that there would be many more opportunities,” he said.

Manal went back to playing. The focus shifted to the red-ball season and, with it, a chance to do something for Madhya Pradesh. “But then we thought that, at least, we would win the red-ball tournament for MP. We did not know that we would come this far from there.”

Madhya Pradesh won the Cooch Behar Trophy for the first time. “That was quite a historic moment for us. It was a very good moment,” he said with a smile.

Then came the India U-19 call-up.

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“After that, things kept getting better. My name came up in the high-performance programme, and then in the squad for the Sri Lanka tour. My debut match went quite well,” he reminisced.

For Manal, there was a lesson in all of this. “The biggest learning has been that things will keep going up and down in life, but you have to stick to your work ethic. You have to remain positive. The more positively you think, the more it will reflect on the field and in your game,” the all-rounder said.

“I feel that the more positively you think and, at the end of the day, when you think that you are manifesting something, you also have to be realistic. You have to be prepared for that thing as well - that if, by chance, this thing does not happen, how will I handle it?”

He tries to apply the same thinking when things go wrong during a match.

“For me, this time, whenever I was playing any game, I had this feeling that I would do well. I was positive, but it was not that if I had a bad game, I would become negative. Whatever mistake I made, I had to move on from it immediately,” he said.

At India U-19, coach Yere Goud gave him an example that stayed with him.

“Sometimes in matches, for example, if you drop a catch, a player keeps thinking, ‘I dropped that catch.’ Sir explained this to us using that example: quickly come out of that over, forget it and move on to the next one. Whether you do well or whether something bad happens, you have to move on. That is the concept,” he said.

Manal is also grateful to his Madhya Pradesh coach, Chandrakant Pandit, who has helped him work on the mental side of the game. “I feel that 70 per cent of the game is mental. It is about how well you handle pressure. He works a lot on that,” he said.

The work is not limited to cricket.

“It is not just about cricket. Sir (Pandit) pays attention to every little things. We have camps, and our library sessions are also a very good thing here.”

The library sessions are simple. The players get half an hour to read and then have to explain what they have read. “You can read properly, peacefully, whatever you want to read. Then, when the time is over, you have to come one-on-one and explain what you read.”

The programme also brings in activities away from the usual cricket routine. “They keep bringing in new things. For example, if we have to do some conditioning for fitness, this time we started playing kho-kho,” Manal said with a smile, adding: “Kho-kho was good. There were new things, so it was fun.”

Away from the ground, Manal tries not to think about cricket too much. “When I am away from cricket, I try to think a little less about the game. I feel everyone has their own way, but I feel a little pressure, so I try to think less about cricket.”

He listens to music, watches movies and web series, and spends time with his family. “I like listening to songs. I also like watching movies and web series, and spending time with family.”

His music choice depends on his mood, but mostly, he listens to Punjabi songs. “It is random. Mostly, I keep it light, so Punjabi songs.”

His family has supported him from the beginning. His father is into digital farming, his mother is a housewife and he has a younger sister. As the elder child, he knows there are expectations, but he feels more pressure from relatives.

“There are a lot of expectations from the family. Actually, not so much from the family, but more from relatives. They keep telling you what you should do and what you should not do. Comments keep coming from all sides.”

He tries to stay away from that noise. “But at that time, the only thing for me was how much I could avoid all those things and stay focused on my game.”

His first real taste of what cricket could mean came in Morena. There was a local player known, who had played up to the State U-19 level. When he returned to the town, people would gather around him. “When he came home, everyone would come to see him and a crowd would gather.”

“Suddenly, I developed this desire that, ‘I also want to play cricket.’ There was that feeling of stardom, and I wanted to feel that one day too.”

He is now an India U-19 cricketer, but the next steps can wait. “I have never thought that much about all these things. I focus more on the things that are happening step by step. I do not think too far ahead.”

For now, he is focused on the series in front of him, taking it one step at a time.

Published on Sep 20, 2026

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