"As kids we didn’t realise that every second day when they switched on the light and there would be no light, eventually they'd know the kids were at play," recalls Agarwal while speaking about his early cricket memories.

He along with his elder brother used to play cricket in their drawing room, and Mayank acknowledges to breaking his fair share of tubelights, which he'd then try to naively hide from his parents.

Photo credit: Mayank Agarwal/Instagram

"We used to play cricket with a tennis ball out on the road till five in the evening, and then after it got dark, we played in our drawing room. My elder brother and I have broken a lot of tubelights," he explains. "Initially there was a big tubelight, we used to keep breaking it and mum used to keep scolding us.

"So the tubelight was eventually replaced by a bulb, and once the bulb was shattered, we hid it behind the sofa."

Those broken glasses didn’t end up futile as young Mayank put his destructive cricket abilities to fruitful use, going on to represent Karnataka at the U-13, U-15 and U-17 levels. Apart from his cricketing plaudits, Agarwal revealed that he used to be a bright student in his school days as well.

"I shouldn't be boasting, but when I didn't play cricket, I was a 92-95 percent student," confessed Agarwal while adding it was his supportive parents that allowed him to continue with the game despite a slight dip in academics.

"I was given the freedom to go out and play. But they also said that you can't put that extra effort in your education. They never expected good marks always, they were alright with an average of 70-75 as well."

Mayank proved to be quite the all-rounder. Getting good marks in school, and runs in the drawing room, the local gully and then on the pitch; broken lights notwithstanding.

And from being the one shattering tubelights, Mayank has gone on to light up many Indian fans with his luminating performance in Australia when he made his Test debut late in 2018.