
Rising Phenom! Ex-Aussie star names 14-year-old Vaibhav Suryavanshi among world cricket's top three teenagers
Former Australia cricketer Kerry O'Keeffe has named 14-year-old Vaibhav Suryavanshi alongside South Africa's Lhuan-dre Pretorius and England's Thomas Rew in his list of the top three most exciting teenagers in world cricket.
O'Keeffe's comments came during the second T20I match between Australia and South Africa, when the 19-year-old Pretorius smoked Glenn Maxwell for a six.
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"You asked me to name the best three teenagers in world cricket at the moment. I had a look at a few of them, and I had Pretorius inside the trifecta behind (Vaibhav) Suryavanshi, the 14-year-old Indian, and Thomas Rew, the 17-year-old Englishman," said O'Keeffe while commentating.
Suryavanshi caught everyone's attention after
Rajasthan Royals
bought him for ₹1.1 crore at the IPL mega auction. In IPL 2025, he played seven games, scoring 252 runs at an average of 36 and a strike rate of 206.56.
Poll
Who do you think is the most exciting teenager in world cricket right now?
Vaibhav Suryavanshi
Lhuan-dre Pretorius
Thomas Rew
Other
Legendary India off-spinner
R Ashwin
showered praise on the 14-year-old batting prodigy and revealed an interesting conversation between England cricketers Jos Buttler and Jofra Archer during an Indian Premier League (IPL) match.
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'I'll tell you a small story. After that RR versus CSK game in Delhi… it's not so much about his hitting,' Ashwin told Sanju Samson in a chat on his YouTube channel. 'I bowled one ball from around the stumps — he played it to cover. The next ball, I bowled slower. You've kept wickets for me for a long time, so I wanted to see where he would go. He just waited for that ball.'
'Then he just creamed it through mid-on for a single. I was like, 'What the hell, man? Where has this guy come from?'
'And he's 14 years old. I made my IPL debut 18 years ago — he was still in his parents' imagination back then. It's quite crazy. I saw Jos Buttler talking to Jofra about it, asking him, 'How did it feel to get smashed by a 14-year-old in the nets?''
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