Over the past two years, the Delhi Premier League (DPL) has become a key pit stop for the scouts. After the emergence of Priyansh Arya and Digvesh Rathi, the latest to join the IPL bandwagon is wicketkeeper Tejasvi Dahiya, who was signed for INR 3 crore by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at the IPL 2026 mini-auction in Abu Dhabi.
It capped off a special evening for the family of academic scholars: Ravindra, his father, teaches mathematics; Babita, his mother, is an economics teacher. "My sister too is a PhD scholar," Dahiya tells ESPNcricinfo.
On Tuesday, Dahiya was hopeful. Like he was last year too, when his name came up twice, only to be passed by. He clutched onto anything he could find this time around as his name came up for bidding. After the first bid came in, there were a few more, and before he realised, Mumbai Indians, KKR and Rajasthan Royals were all involved in a bidding war.
Dahiya, the Virender Sehwag fanboy, had trialled for seven teams, and all of them clearly had his stats for ready reference. Dahiya was the leading six-hitter in this year's DPL, smashing 29 sixes and scoring 339 runs at a strike rate of nearly 200. And when they saw him showcase those abilities at trials too, he was earmarked by at least three teams.
When Dahiya chose cricket over academics, his parents chose to send him to Sanjay Bhardwaj, a renowned coach in Delhi whose alumni list is rather long, including current India head coach Gautam Gambhir. But getting a chance to train under Bhardwaj isn't easy, as Dahiya found out.
Dahiya first attended Bhardwaj's LB Shastri Academy for a summer training camp as a 12-year-old, an experience he said "changed his life".
"Getting direct admission into Sanjay sir's academy is very difficult," Dahiya said. "He does not give admission to just anyone. When I went there for the summer camp and spent two months there, he liked not only my game but also my discipline and work ethic. So when the camp was ending, he told my parents that I was now his responsibility."
It was there that Dahiya met Arya, who would become one of his closest friends, and later team-mates in Delhi. Being from the same age group, the two played all their cricket together, and have now used the DPL as a platform to launch themselves into the IPL.
But the path to getting there wasn't rosy. Like several others, Dahiya was a struggler coming through the age-group circuit in Delhi. He only made it as far as a stand-by in Under-16s, and sat out the entire first year of his Under-19s. Finally, when he got his chances in his second year, he scored two consecutive centuries in the Cooch Behar Trophy.
"After those two back-to-back hundreds in the Cooch Behar Trophy, my confidence grew that I could survive at a higher level too," Dahiya said. "These centuries were more special because that year, no other Delhi batter scored a hundred. But the next year Covid came."
When cricket resumed, Dahiya found himself excluded from the Under-23 side and had to wait for his turn for nearly two seasons. And even when he was included, breaking into the XI proved near impossible. This is when the DPL happened, and Dahiya could not be more thankful.
In DPL 2024, he scored 208 runs in ten innings with two half-centuries and a strike rate of 163.78 for South Delhi Superstarz. In the 2025 season, he took his game a step higher, scoring 339 runs in ten innings at a strike rate of 190.45. He was the only batter among the 12 run-getters to have over 300 runs with a strike rate above 190. He also hit the second-most sixes (29), after Nitish Rana (34).
In a rain-affected match against Purani Dilli 6, when his team needed 134 runs in seven overs, Dahiya smashed a half-century in just 12 balls and finished with 69 runs off 21 balls at a strike rate of 328.57 to pull off the impossible. This innings proved he could open as well as bat in the lower middle order.
"The DPL has helped a lot. Since it is telecasted, not only selectors but also IPL scouts watch it," Dahiya says. "They already have a clear picture of every player. Trial matches are not telecast, but here players know everyone is watching. Your attitude is noticed that how you handle pressure.
"Now I don't think too much about selection, because it becomes a burden on your game. You get stuck thinking that you are playing only for selection. So I just follow my process, the same one I've followed since childhood - if it's a rest day, recover properly, then practice well the next day, instead of thinking about IPL or Ranji Trophy."
In a season where KKR have to move on from their greatest finisher, Andre Russell, Dahiya has an opportunity to take baby steps to being one. And he couldn't be more excited.