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Most might know Aman Mokhade because the top-scorer of VHT 2025-26. But he’s also an off-spinner, a leg-spinner, a fast-bowler, a wicketkeeper and an ‘enthu cutlet’. That is his story.
Aman Mokhade celebrates his century throughout the Vijay Hazare Trophy semifinal. (PTI Photo)
Normally, when a promising men’s cricketer speaks about his Virat Kohli-MS Dhoni-Rohit Sharma story, it finally ends up becoming more about them. Their invaluable advice, their inspiring attitude, their unexpectedly down-to-earth demeanor and so forth.
Refreshingly, within the case of this yr’s Vijay Hazare Trophy top run-scorer Aman Mokhade, his Kohli-Dhoni-Rohit story reveals rather a lot more about him.
It was 2017, and the Indian caravan had landed on the Vidarbha Cricket Association stadium in Nagpur for the fifth ODI against Australia. A daily volunteer for the matches in his region, Mokhade was fed up of doing ball-boy duties, especially in Tests at a pitch where all nine fielders often do close-in catching for spinners and the ball hardly goes to the boundary.
This time, he desired to be closer to the celebrities, so he decided to be modern.
“I wanted to fulfill them, however the coach said the team only needed bowlers in nets,” Mokhade tells News18 CricketNext over the phone. “I said, ‘No, sir, please put me in as a bowler. I’ll bowl and just see their routine before a game, how they practice.’… I knew if I could get a likelihood as a net bowler, I might get to be around them for 2 to 3 days of practice. That’s what I did.”
If you’ve followed domestic cricket over the past yr, you may know Mokhade as a technically superb batter, with an enormous range of shots. But he’s also an off-spinner, a leg-spinner, a wicketkeeper and a self-proclaimed ‘enthu cutlet’. That is his story.
‘Tu batsman hi banega’
Growing up in Nagpur, Mokhade hardly stayed at home. Most of his time can be spent on the bottom in front of his house, playing tennis-ball cricket along with his father, Ravindra.
Ravindra, who had once harbored the dream of becoming knowledgeable cricketer himself, saw the spark and enrolled him in a cricket academy at across the age of 10. There, Mokhade met coach Nitin Kanade, who got him up to the mark with the fundamentals.
“I wasn’t even conversant in the concept of pads,” Mokhade recalls. “On the primary day, I just took a bat and went because that’s what I used to do at the bottom near my house. I used to be so excited to play that I did fielding for 2 hours. But my mind was on the nets nearby. At the tip, I asked him, ‘Sir, I actually have a bat, can I bat too?’ He said, ‘You don’t have pads.’ So he arranged someone’s pads and gave them to me.”
Among the many youngest kids in an academy, Mokhade’s first couple of years were about fast-bowling because he just wouldn’t get the chance to bat. As he learned concerning the red ball and developed natural swing, he even got a taste for it.
“At some point, I told my dad, ‘I will likely be a quick bowler’,” Mokhade remembers. “He just said, ‘Do whatever you wish, but you’ll be a batter at some point. Tu batsman hi banega (You’ll change into a batter).’”
Ravindra was right.
Mokhade’s coaches saw something in him within the early age-group years and made him the team captain. The added responsibility pushed him to work harder on batting and the coaches, impressed, step by step kept sending him higher up the order, where it became greater than only a secondary skill.
But that didn’t get the bowling-worm out of him. In his under-19 days, when the team didn’t have a spin all-rounder, Mokhade was asked to fill-in and so, in fact, he did.
“I’m form of an enthu cutlet, I need to bowl, I need to bat, I need to do every thing after I am on the sector. Off-spin, leg-spin, I can do each… I’ve even done wicket-keeping in a match! Once, we were playing a three-day match and nothing was happening for the bowlers, so I asked our keeper if I could keep for a session. I did that too,” he says, adding that he still considers himself a correct all-rounder.
Which one in every of his many skills did he show to the Indian cricketers that day in 2017?
“They desired to face spinners only, so I bowled spin. Virat bhaiya… he was batting rather a lot against the side-arm. I used to be just watching from the side nets. Eventually, he got here and faced a few balls and went off. The wicket wasn’t that good,” Mokhade says with amusing.
Around this time, he had met Umesh Patwal, the VCA academy coach who was asked to coach the 30 best under-16 and under-19 boys within the association. Patwal helped Mokhade grow and has been a relentless in his journey since, with regular conversations about any batting issues and even occasional trips to his Mumbai academy.
In recent times, he has also made a few expeditions to a different academy in the town, led by Yashasvi Jaiswal’s coach Jwala Singh, whose setup is known for being near-identical to senior cricket with open-net practice and match-like fields.
“I feel I actually have been blessed to have plenty of coaches who helped me in several parts of my life,” Mokhade says.
Comeback Season
Even though it was Ravindra who got his profession began, Mokhade says his mother, Manisha, has seen his vulnerable side throughout the typical highs and lows of knowledgeable cricketer’s journey. As Ravindra would often be off working his private job, Manisha would put her own motherly anxiety aside to consistently motivate him.
It was particularly needed in 2022 when, on the age of 21, consistency in age-group cricket got him an early call-up to Vidarbha’s T20 side, but his performances weren’t ok to carry onto the spot. That led to all but an exile from Vidarbha’s starting 11 for the subsequent three years, behind more experienced competitors, across formats.
“I used to be fortunate to get that chance,” Mokhade says in hindsight. “I learned what form of players are at this level, the mentality, how they rating runs, and what’s required to perform. I used to be still playing age-group cricket at the moment, so I used to be capable of implement those learnings after I went back. Even when I didn’t get a likelihood here, I attempted to use those things in U-25 cricket, how one can take responsibility, how one can finish games if you find yourself the one batter left, how one can play the massive innings while you’re set, how one can get a start and how one can bat in several situations.”
Indeed, later that yr, he was VCA’s top run-scorer within the Under-25 State A Trophy (List-A) with 396 runs in seven matches at a mean of 96.25.
He maintained the extent over the subsequent couple of years. Then, within the 2024 Col. CK Nayudu Trophy (red-ball), he scored 670 runs, including a double-century, at a mean of 55.83, which earned him his place back before last yr’s Ranji Trophy.
It wasn’t smooth sailing again.
The teenager was run out without facing a ball in his comeback innings against Andhra and hit half-century within the second essay. Nevertheless, his performances dwindled in the subsequent few games and he was dropped, resigned to the sidelines as Vidarbha lifted the title.
Mokhade was fidgety — he knew he was in great nick but needed one other likelihood to showcase it, anyhow. He stayed with the squad this time, though, and maintained each his form in practice games and his self-belief.
Still, although Vidarbha has one in every of the friendliest team environments around — most of them are childhood friends — Mokhade knew nobody would quit the competition.
“I kept myself motivated. At the tip of the day, you simply need to take care of every thing,” he says.
Finally, the possibility got here this yr when Karun Nair left Vidarbha and returned to Karnataka. The batting spot was up for grabs again and Mokhade wasn’t going to offer it up this time.
In the primary leg of the 2025-26 Ranji Trophy season, he smashed 577 runs at 96.16, the fifth-best within the competition on the time. Within the T20 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, he was Vidarbha’s joint-highest run-scorer with 206 runs at a strike-rate of 157.25.
Every part dovetailed beautifully within the Vijay Hazare Trophy (VHT), the 50-over competition. Mokhade smashed 643 runs from the primary eight innings as Vidarbha flew to the semi-final of a trophy that that they had never won of their history.
Their opponents were Karnataka, the team that beat them in last edition’s summit clash in January 2025.
“We hadn’t won any trophies, but in the event you see the last four-five years, we were very close,” Mokhade says concerning the jitters of trying to attain something like that. “We were all the time playing semi-finals or quarter-finals. We even lost a number of finals… That did hurt, however it also gave us confidence. We knew if we just managed to come back together within the knockouts, we are able to easily win the trophy. We just needed to put ourselves together and make it occur.”
It was he who made it occur.
Karnataka scored 280, with Nair the top-scorer. It was an above-par total for a pace-friendly wicket, especially for a team with among the best pace attacks within the country.
“They’d read the wicket well; since there wasn’t much for spinners, they played 4 fast bowlers, that too all of the premium fast bowlers who are actually within the IPL and the India ‘A’ side,” Mokhade says. “Plus, that they had the experience of Mayank Agarwal and Karun Nair of their side. I could see them guiding every bowler on a regular basis. Once I was batting, I could see Karun bhai adjusting the sector based on my shots. He knew the areas where I hit essentially the most.”
The ball was pinging around and Mokhade lost his opening partner for nine runs.
“It was very motivating for me to see that they were against me and wanted me to get out. They’d that hunger. I believed I should have something special that they’re so keen on it! Plus, all of the selectors were there for the massive game.”
Because the juices kicked in, the result was a masterful 138 off just 122 balls, with 12 fours and two sixes. It had some unbelievable offside play, starting with deft usage of pace plus direction after which a transition to power and aggression.
It was greater than ok to knock out the holders and secure a spot in the ultimate.
“Most of my runs have are available 300-plus chases where the team is banking on me heavily. That gets me going,” he says.
Vidarbha went on to win the title and Mokhade took with him something extraordinarily unique: he became the fastest Indian to attain 1000 runs in List A cricket (16 innings), equalling the decades-old world record of South Africa legend Graeme Pollock.
“When I’m going right into a tournament, I all the time need to be the very best run-scorer and the champion,” Mokhade says. “But actually doing and achieving it’s something else. It’s a sea of emotions right away, but we now have to remain humble. Now we have one other goal ahead of us. That thought is keeping me grounded and us humble as a team. We’re not getting carried away with that, bhai jeet gaye, jeet gaye. We’re still focused on the subsequent one.”
Rising Motion
It has been a protracted season on the road. Mokhade last went home and ‘chilled with friends’ — his favourite thing outside of cricket — after the primary leg of the Ranji Trophy for a few days, though he says it’s all a part of his life now.
“I haven’t met my mother in a protracted time, but from our conversations, I feel she may be very comfortable,” he says.
The sacrifices have led to results.
Considered one of Mokhade’s USPs is his all-format brilliance, which he credits to his mental clarity and his determination to simply put in some overtime within the nets before a format change and iron out any issues. As of January 25, he’s the one player within the top-five run-scorers’ list for each the Ranji Trophy and the VHT.
He may be only the third, after Vijay Bhardwaj (1998/99) and Mayank Agarwal (2017/18), to top each charts in the identical season. But that’s removed from his mind, for all his goals revolve around only one thing.
“Since I began playing, I’ve had one constant goal in my mind: I actually have to play for India,” he says. “So every long-term or mid-term goal revolves around that. I need to play for my country, wear that blue jersey… I don’t plan an excessive amount of, like ‘I actually have to do that much.’ I just need to go into every game with the identical intensity, contribute, and dominate.”
January 29, 2026, 10:39 IST
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