[Source: BBC Sport]

There is a reason Ben Stokes has been trying to banish talk of Australia.

The eye kept firmly fixed on the next Ashes series is English cricket’s biggest weakness – one that occasionally borders on obsession.

Stokes wanted to ensure none of that distraction reached his dressing room because, long before it was laid bare by the hosts’ toil on day one of the five-Test series against India in Leeds, he knew the size of the challenge his side’s current opponents will pose over the next six weeks.

Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Ravichandran Ashwin may have retired, taking with them 296 Tests worth of experience and enough runs and wickets to fuel a country, but India’s next generation are here and ready.

Stokes and England must already be sick of Yashasvi Jaiswal.

The 23-year-old may look no older than the university freshers who fill the terraced streets around Headingley but the batter who lived in a groundsman’s tent as a 10-year-old has quickly become England’s scourge.

In India’s 4-1 home series win against Stokes’ men last year, Jaiswal piled up 712 runs and sent their greatest bowler James Anderson into early retirement.

In Rajkot he hit three consecutive sixes off Anderson, the first a thrillingly inventive slog sweep over deep square leg.

This classy 101 from 159 balls was a total contrast – an innings that would have pleased Yorkshire and England great Sir Geoffrey Boycott watching on.

Jaiswal may be an Indian Premier League megastar but he began slowly before growing in intent to crash England’s bowlers through the off side. England targeted the pads from over the wicket but that angle only aided his strengths as he scored 92 of his runs through the off side.

Jaiswal now has centuries in his first Test and first innings in both Australia and England – the two destinations where all Indian batters are judged most – while no-one from the world’s cricketing superpower can match his haul of 1,899 runs after 20 Tests.

The talk before this match was about how India replace the run machine that was Kohli, the defining cricketer of the past decade who stepped away after giving the format 9,230 runs, 30 centuries and everything more.

Yet Jaiswal already has 15 scores of 50 or more to his name, four more than Kohli at the same stage.

At this point the great Sachin Tendulkar had only eight.

The wisest heads are already pondering whether Jaiswal is India’s greatest left-hander. Should he continue unchecked, he will keep company with the greatest of them all.

While Jaiswal bounded around Headingley in celebrating three figures, India’s second century was met with a roaring release of emotion.

Shubman Gill, the player of the tournament at the Under-19 World Cup and an IPL debutant at 18, has been groomed for this role since he was a teen.

As he timed Josh Tongue through the covers – a shot that epitomised this procession to a first Test century outside of Asia – he took a moment before feelings from all of those days, weeks and years of waiting came bursting out.

Gill may be the perfect India captain for their new era.

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