The school’s cricketing credentials are apparent right now even without stepping in though. The gates of the school premises are flanked by vertical hoardings congratulating one of their own—19-year-old Yash Dhull—who will be captaining India at the U-19 World Cup in the Caribbean, scheduled from January 14 to February 5.

It is in these cricket-centric surroundings that Dhull, who is from Janakpuri in West Delhi, spent much of his formative years, sharpening his skills as a busy right-handed middle-order batter, a razor-sharp fielder and an astute leader. Dhull has already led the team to victory in the U-19 Asia Cup in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and now the chance to lead India to their fifth U-19 World Cup title beckons.

Two of those previous titles, of course, came under captains from Delhi—Virat Kohli in 2008 and Unmukt Chand in 2012—even if their careers traversed divergent paths after that.

Not that Dhull is thinking about any of that. “He doesn’t think too much about what happened in the past or let things get to his head. He is very disciplined and his thought process is different. He won’t get satisfied with small things like playing for India U-19s. I have also told him that this is just the start of a journey,” says Rajesh Nagar, head coach of the Bal Bhavan academy, while keeping an eye on the kids at the nets.

Dhull seemed to be just one such scrawny kid when he was taken to Nagar as an 11-year-old back in 2013. But it didn’t take long for the 37-year-old Nagar, who has been coaching at the Bal Bhavan academy since 2009, to realise that he had a special player on his hands.

“Yash is a kid whose talent stands out even when he is batting with 100 other people. Uski batting mein kuch alag baat hai (There is something different about his batting). We have always made him play with boys bigger than him. That has also helped,” Nagar says.

Dhull's quick adaptation at Bal Bhavan is partly because his formal training started early. It was his mother, Neelam, who initially spotted Dhull’s instinct for batting when he was all of six. “When I used to throw a ball at him, he would move his hands as if he was holding a bat or do the same with his feet,” she says over tea at their spacious multistorey house.

“Even when we would take him to a park and give him a plastic bat in his hand, he would play so well and his bat swing would be perfect,” father Vijay, a former club cricketer himself, says, while keeping an eye on the India-South Africa Test on TV.

Dhull was taken to a local academy at the nearby Bharati College first. It was there that Dhull picked up the fundamentals of the game before moving to Bal Bhavan in the fifth standard.

“When he started doing really well in the game, we made him switch to Bal Bhavan because of the focus that the school gave to cricket,” Vijay, 51, says.

He immediately got to play in an Under-12 tournament, where he was adjudged the best batter.

"After that, he has played for Delhi across age groups and kept upgrading himself,” says Nagar.

The only hiccup for Dhull came when he was 13 and excluded from the Delhi U-14 team for a year.

“Maybe, he felt bad on the day he wasn’t selected. But the next day, he was back playing matches for his academy. The coaches told him that if he keeps performing, he would be selected next year. We didn’t let him take that snub seriously,” says Vijay, the vice-president of a cosmetics company whose own inability to become a top-level cricketer fuelled his determination to see his son carve that path.

On the face of it, the U-14 snub has an uncanny resemblance to Kohli’s own journey. The current Indian Test captain was also dropped from the Delhi U-14 team at one stage owing to the politics notorious with cricket in Delhi. Did Dhull also have to go through a similar ordeal?

Not so, says Vijay.

"When Yash was not picked in U-14, we weren’t too disappointed. He hadn’t put in any exceptional performances back then. If he had done well and been ignored, there can be a problem," he says. "But we knew that it is time for him to work hard and sort his basics."

That is exactly what Dhull did, knocking the door down with enough runs to then be selected for the Delhi U-16s. A key turning point, once he was picked for the U-16s, came at the Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi when he made a match-saving 183 against Punjab, batting for more than a day in the presence of a few reputed coaches and selectors.

"Delhi were eight down but Yash batted till the end and drew the game. A lot of big coaches saw that innings at Kotla. The selectors were also there. Then, he became U-16 captain,” recalls Vijay.

Remarkably for a player his age, Dhull's game is not modelled on any one particular idol or favourite batter.

“He has always watched everyone. He tries to learn from the mindset of every player,” says Vijay.

According to coach Nagar, however, there are flashes of Kohli’s mindset in Dhull’s batting.

“When Yash is batting, the match is in his control. I won’t say he is a very hard-hitting batter. He can stick around at the wicket when the team needs and can play the big shots when necessary. He is a busy player. Jis din woh set hota hai, poora match khatam karke aata hai (The day he is set, he finishes the match),” says Nagar.

While the family says that Dhull is soft-spoken and reticent off the field, that scrappy, take-no-prisoners spirit that West Delhi is famous (or infamous) for comes to the fore on the field. Again, the comparisons with Kohli, also from West Delhi, are inevitable.

“Yash is a boy from West Delhi. Aggression is natural,” Nagar says.

With the U-19 World Cup set to be the first event where Dhull will be seen on television, his batting style and persona will become more evident once the tournament starts. If he can have success with the bat and lead his team with authority to the title, the expectations will soar just like they did with Kohli and Chand. But as Chand’s example shows, there is no guarantee that success at the junior level will propel a player to similar heights at the senior level. Out of the 13 U-19 World Cup captains that India have had so far, only six have gone on to represent the country. And Vijay has made that clear to Dhull.

“The media compares these things, but there are no comparisons," Vijay says. Kohli and Chand performed in their time. They had their own level and created a name for themselves at the U-19 level. Kohli is of course an inspiration for all Delhi kids given that he is from here. But Dhull doesn’t get excited about the spotlight as U-19 captain. We have also told him that he has to stay grounded. The U-19 WC is just one tournament. The journey gets much tougher after that.”