For someone who has been in Bangalore for a good enough period to form an understanding of the situation, trust me, it is the most difficult challenge one has to endure in the “City of Gardens”. Mayank Agarwal had embraced it with open arms because he felt R Muralidhar gave him the best coaching he wanted and paying the price for it on the road, however difficult, was just a small sacrifice he had to make in order to reach what he wanted in his career.

Saying Agarwal is having a purple patch in his career is an understatement. He had broken all doors possible with his performances at the domestic and India A level with the sheer value of runs. When no one else other than him deserved a spot in the Indian team, selectors suddenly drafted in Prithvi Shaw for the home series against West Indies last year, and incidentally, an injury to the Mumbai youngster only brought him into the series against Australia - and he hasn't looked back ever since.

One person, apart from Karnataka's Ranji Trophy coach J Arun Kumar, who was alongside Mayank to bring about this transformation was Agarwal’s childhood coach from Bengaluru’s Bishop Cotton School Muralidhar, who had his own academy in Whitefield. A former coach of Karnataka and assistant coach to Michael Bevan at Odisha Ranji Trophy team, Muralidhar brought a wholesome change to his mindset as the duo spent as much time working on mental discipline as they did on the game. So dedicated Murali was for Mayank, every little move of the latter had the former's approval to it, and it paid rich dividends.

His father asked him to move in the direction of Vipassana, one of India's most ancient techniques of meditation discovered by Goutama Buddha more than 2500 years ago and was taught by him as a universal remedy for universal ills. The calm and zen mind is a result of dedicating himself to the meditation as Murali reveals Mayank was not always like this.

“Right from a young age, he represented all the age categories - U15s, U19s, U21s. When you are playing well, there is an expectation of breaking into the Ranji Trophy side at 20, 21 is always there. When that didn’t happen, he was disturbed. In phases, he also had his share of mental struggles to handle. There are challenges in every phase. Before breaking into the Ranji side, the challenge is to get in. Once you get in, the challenge is to cement your place. Once you do that, the dream of playing for India steps in. And it keeps going on, the challenges are never over. After this 215, the expectations from him will be even bigger, but the thing is, he’ll be quieter and calmer now. Because he has done it once, he can do it again and again,” the coach added.

“He was losing balance a few seasons ago. He was getting right across. I wouldn’t say he was playing a lot of cross-batted shots, but he was not getting into great positions. So that was something that we worked on. The balance - the mental balance and physical balance was something that we worked on. We worked on his stance, his backlift, and the head position,” Murali explains.

“The desire to be more consistent is what we were looking at. He was very streaky, all those things were fine. But what is it that helps somebody climbing the ladder was to be more consistent. So that is what we then tried to identify: to be more consistent, what does he need to do. The first answer that came out was that, number one, you need to have good habits. So, we created those good habits. And for you to score more runs, obviously you need to face a number of balls. So eliminate all his risky shots, and focus on the shots which are safer. And that is the result of what has happened right now.”

This was, as Murali had said, the first hurdle that his ward had to overcome before going for bigger and grander things in his life. It is just the start. And the Arjun is yet to pay the full price to his Dronacharya. From the looks of it, it might just be a matter of time.