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Hindustan Times
21-05-2025
- Sport
- Hindustan Times
Boy wonder Suryavanshi sparkles with a knock of maturity
New Delhi: It is tough to look for positives in a season when your team has finished ninth in a 10-team competition, but Rajasthan Royals (RR) who promised much with abundant talent in their ranks but failed miserably this IPL season, sign off having helped ignite a bright spark that can glow beyond the glamorous T20 league. Their consolation six-wicket win over the abject five-time champions Chennai Super Kings (CSK) at the Arun Jaitley Stadium here on Tuesday showed their 14-year-old batting sensation Vaibhav Suryavanshi is more than a one-trick pony. Having lit up 2025 IPL in a matter of seven innings with his imperious strokeplay, not many expected Suryavanshi to have the waiting game in his arsenal, that too for someone this young. Seen as a quintessential T20 product whose instinct is to go hell for leather, the Bihar batter showed remarkable restraint in his 33-ball 57 that laid the foundation for RR's win. Chasing 188, Suryavanshi barely got the strike in the Powerplay as fellow opener Yashasvi Jaiswal went after the bowling. The teenager faced only three balls in the first four overs, and his first 10 balls yielded only 12 runs. But he came into his own in the eighth over, going after CSK's premier wrist spinner, Afghan international Noor Ahmad, first pulling his long hop for six before lashing successive front foot cover drives. After two quiet overs from Matheesha Pathirana and Ravichandran Ashwin, Suryavanshi hit a brace of sixes off Ravindra Jadeja, following it up with another six off Noor in the next over to bring up his fifty off 27 balls. The swift and seamless shifting of gears and the ability to rotate the strike impressed skipper Sanju Samson no end. 'I don't have words for him. He was smart in picking his options in the middle overs. It's a stunning combination, having that potential and game awareness,' Samson, who shared a 98-run stand with Suryavanshi, said post match. 'He can hit over leg side, he can wait and hit slower balls over covers for six. That tells you what kind of talent and temperament he has.' Last September, the 13-year-old's 58-ball ton for India U-19 against Australia U-19 in a four-day game brought him on the radar of IPL scouts. And when ex-India and current RR batting coach Vikram Rathour saw him at the nets, he was floored by the fluent downswing. 'We have scouts who watch all the leagues and the recommendation came after his 100 against Australia U-19. Honestly, when I saw him for the first time, I was sold. Just with that downswing of his bat... He's very, very unique. I haven't seen something like that for a long, long time,' gushed Rathour in the post-match presser. With 252 runs from just seven innings at a strike rate of 206.55, RR's ₹1.1 crore buy has closed the season as their fifth highest run-getter, and the team's only centurion. His 24 sixes place him third – behind Jaiswal and Riyan Parag – on the list of six hitters for RR. That Suryavanshi has hit those many sixes in half the matches the other two played speaks about his big-hitting prowess. That is what makes his innings against CSK all the more special. He ran 15 singles and a double and played out nine dot balls to show he has the temperament and match awareness. 'We've been working with him for quite some time now and we've seen all these aspects of his game. But it's great to see him do that in pressure situations. The ball was doing a bit when he went in and he hardly got any balls in the Powerplay. The kind of maturity he showed was really good. It will definitely make him a better player,' Rathour said. Later, in a video interview with head coach Rahul Dravid, Suryavanshi shed light on his mindset. 'There's nothing like a natural game. You need to play the situation and as per the team's requirements. At this level, don't try and do something special; just play to your strengths,' he said. A dream IPL debut season done, the challenge for Suryavanshi will be to maintain his level, especially when bowlers look to test him harder next season. Going by his batting demonstration on Tuesday, Suryavanshi should be up to the task.
The Hindu
09-05-2025
- Sport
- The Hindu
Smells like teen spirit: prodigies, prodigals and everything in between
Over the past few weeks, a question has popped up in the minds of many players, commentators and fans associated with cricket: What were we doing when we were 14? Serious reflection may elicit a variety of interesting responses. But the brief purpose of this rhetorical query is to highlight the point that none of us was bludgeoning world-class bowlers and bringing up 35-ball centuries under the piercing gaze of vast audiences in the Indian Premier League. Defying conventional logic At an age when most boys, experiencing puberty and perhaps a phase of teenage rebellion, are prone to glibly conjuring up a new career path every month, Vaibhav Suryavanshi is a professional cricketer defying conventional logic in the world's biggest T20 league. Frankly, for a large majority of us, even to dream along these lines would be beyond the realms of possibility. In Suryavanshi's adolescent life — let it sink in that he belongs to a generation even more nascent than Gen-Z — he has already made a habit of doing things that would be considered straight out of a fairy tale. In January 2024, at the age of just 12 years and 284 days, he made his First Class debut for Bihar against domestic giant Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy. Then in September-October, featuring for India U-19, the left-hander smashed a 58-ball century against Australia U-19 in a Youth Test in Chennai. It pointed to a precocious talent, but what ensued in November, during the IPL auction in Jeddah, was truly unprecedented: still 13, his cherubic face exuding blissful ignorance, he attracted a bidding war that eventually saw Rajasthan Royals cough up a whopping ₹1.1 crore. If all this was out of the ordinary, the boy from Samastipur has endeared himself to fans even further this summer. That his bat could produce moments of Mary Poppins-induced magic became apparent after his very first ball in the IPL when he backed away and thumped Lucknow Super Giants' Shardul Thakur for a spectacular six over extra cover. He made 34 off 20 balls, a few tears rolling down his cheeks on his dismissal being the only giveaway of his tender age. Just two matches later, the view that this is a wonderkid poised to leave our collective jaws on the floor was fortified. Against a Gujarat Titans attack comprising six international bowlers, Suryavanshi hit a record-shattering 38-ball 101 to help RR hunt down 210 in 15.5 overs. 'There is no fear. I don't think much, I just focus on playing' was Suryavanshi's laconic post-match remark. He is hardwired to bashing the ball at every opportunity: he makes a back-and-across shuffle deep into his crease, keeps his front leg away from the line of the ball to create room and swings his bat at lightning speed from an extravagantly high back-lift. There's another thing that has caught the eye of Royals coach Rahul Dravid. 'What you look for in a good young batter is how quick they are to judge length,' Dravid told the media. 'That is something that has really amazed me. One thing you notice with Vaibhav is that he is very quick to pick up on anything that is fractionally short or full.' Bringing Tendulkar to mind Owing to the amazement aroused by a boy in his mid-teens taking on highly established bowlers, Suryavanshi has evoked comparisons with Sachin Tendulkar. The prodigy from Mumbai was a 16-year-old with a squeaky voice on India's tour of Pakistan in 1989 when he famously dispatched the crafty Abdul Qadir for four sixes in an over in an exhibition game in Peshawar after an ODI had been abandoned. To draw further parallels between the two, of course, would be a bit of a stretch for the time being. Tendulkar's fabled 24-year international career was down to a combination of technique, temperament, hunger for runs and an uncompromising work ethic. 'See, Sachin grew up in a different environment. He was brought up by his coach to do things with a different methodology,' former India cricketer W.V. Raman weighed in. 'So that being the case, you cannot compare. Sachin was a lot more technically correct. So, it was easy for him to build on the strong basics he had.' The arrival of a promising youngster on the scene tends to tug at the heartstrings and raise anticipation. But for every Tendulkar and Gary Sobers — the great all-rounder was 17 when he first played for West Indies — there are several cautionary tales. Of the Indians who made their Test debuts before 18 — Tendulkar, Piyush Chawla, L. Sivaramakrishnan, Parthiv Patel, Maninder Singh, Vijay Mehra and Harbhajan Singh — it is evident that only a couple fulfilled their potential. Though quite a few of these were bowlers, is there a case to make for batters being more equipped to succeed at a younger age? Teenage spinners are generally perceived to need more time to assimilate the vagaries of their craft. In the case of fledgling pacers, a developing body not yet fully geared to the rigours of bowling fast may come in the way. 'The system will be a little apprehensive with spinners. Because they would also tend to cast their minds back to the likes of Sivaramakrishnan and Maninder. Of course, blooding them in at that age was not the issue. It was just that they did not have the right guidance once they hit a rough patch. And it has also been proven over the years that spinners mature late. A lot of factors are involved for bowlers because they need the backing of their captain,' Raman opined. 'But for batters, once they get a few runs, the obstacles are not many. And that's the reason why you see young batters gaining recognition sooner than bowlers.' Recognition has certainly come Suryavanshi's way very soon. But his dismissals on 0 and 4 in successive outings following his century were a reminder of the ebbs and flows that his journey will entail, and underlined the need to temper expectations. What lies ahead To ensure that his encounter with fame isn't all too fleeting, a cooperative racking of brains, involving his IPL franchise, the Bihar Cricket Association and the BCCI, will be needed. The mental effects of an early exposure to the arc lights will also have to be monitored. 'He's got to watch out on the kind of advice he heeds. Because he will go through a lot of teams. And he will have to obviously work with a lot of coaches along the way,' Raman said. 'So, he has to be about five times as good as the coaches that he encounters. He has to decide what really suits his game, what really suits his temperament, and what really suits his philosophy of cricket. That is going to be the key. If he resorts to following just about everything, then he is going to be in that zone of confusion. So it will all come down to that.' For now, Suryavanshi has a coach in Dravid at RR who will offer good counsel. As and when the IPL resumes, then, let's just marvel at a boy hammering fours and sixes on the big stage without a care in the world. Something we weren't doing at 14.
Hans India
29-04-2025
- Sport
- Hans India
Vaibhav Suryavanshi Becomes Youngest Ever IPL Centurion at 14
At just 14 years old, Vaibhav Suryavanshi has stunned the cricketing world by becoming the youngest player ever to score a century in the IPL, and the second-fastest, i.e., in 35 balls, in the tournament's history—only behind Chris Gayle's legendary 30-ball hundred in 2013. With 94 of his runs coming in boundaries, Suryavanshi knocked off plenty of records. In a breathtaking display of skill, confidence, and fearlessness, Suryavanshi smashed a 101-run knock off just 38 balls, guiding Rajasthan Royals to a dominant 8-wicket win. His explosive innings finally came to an end with a searing yorker from pacer Prasidh Krishna, but the impact was already made. The Nation Reacts Social media erupted with praise as cricket legends, fans, and politicians celebrated this phenomenal feat. Among the many voices was Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who not only congratulated the young cricketer on X (formerly Twitter) but also announced a ₹10 lakh cash reward from the state government. 'Congratulations and best wishes to Vaibhav Suryavanshi of Bihar, who became the youngest player (14 years) to score a century in the history of IPL. He has become a new hope for Indian cricket as a result of his hard work and talent. Everyone is proud of him," Nitish wrote. 'I met Mr. Vaibhav Suryavanshi and his father in 2024, and at that time, I wished him a bright future. After his brilliant performance in the IPL, I also congratulated him over the phone.' Yuvraj Singh too was all praise for Vaibhav Suryavanshi's fearless strokeplay. Taking to social media he expressed his admiration,'What were you doing at 14?!! This kid is taking on the best bowlers in the world without blinking an eyelid! Vaibhav Suryavanshi — remember the name! Playing with a fearless attitude. Proud to see the next generation shine!' The IPL Breakthrough Vaibhav's rise to fame began with the IPL 2025 mega auction, where Rajasthan Royals made a bold and historic bid—signing him for ₹1.1 crore, making him the youngest crorepati in IPL history. It raised eyebrows initially, but today, that gamble looks more like genius. A Record-Setting Journey from Bihar Vaibhav's journey began at age 12 when he represented Bihar in the Vinoo Mankad Trophy, scoring a remarkable 400 runs in five matches. He followed this with a dazzling 104 off 62 balls against Australia U-19 in Chennai, becoming the fastest Indian to score a century in Youth Test cricket, and the second-fastest globally. In 2024, he made his Ranji Trophy debut for Bihar at just 12 years and 284 days, becoming the youngest player to do so since 1986. That same year, he scored an unbeaten 332-run triple century in the Randhir Verma U-19 Tournament, further cementing his status as a generational talent. With his dream IPL debut behind him and the world watching, Vaibhav's journey is only just beginning. Training alongside seasoned pros and facing international-quality bowlers week in and week out, he is on track to become a future star of the Indian national team.
