Teen star that cricket can no longer ignore

By Anand Vasu

Vaibhav Suryavanshi

As the world’s richest cricket tournament Indian Premier League (IPL) returned, there will be a lot of attention on the big names. Some of it will also be on a teenager.

A day before the IPL started on 27 March, Rajasthan Royals batter Vaibhav Suryavanshi turns 15. And with that, one of Indian cricket’s most intriguing questions sharpens into focus: is he ready for the big stage?

Suryavanshi first turned heads three years ago when he was a 12-year-old batter taking bowlers old enough to be his father to the cleaners.

Since then, however, the quality of his batting, consistency and hunger for tall scores at an extreme strike rate have taken centre-stage.

Standing tall at the crease, Suryavanshi is an instinctive aggressor - he attacks the ball rather than waiting for it, and at his best, his stroke play carries a flourish that many have likened to the great Garry Sobers.

In 2020, the International Cricket Council (ICC) drew a line - introducing minimum age rules in the name of “safeguarding of players”. Even at the Under-19 level, the message was clear: no-one below 15 would step onto the international stage.

This was the first time the ICC had put in a minimum age requirement, with Pakistan’s Hasan Raza holding the record for being the youngest male Test cricketer at 14 years and 227 days when he made his debut in 1996.

While Raza’s record remains safe, one barrier has quietly fallen: Sachin Tendulkar’s benchmark - an international debut at 16 years and 205 days - is no longer out of reach for Suryavanshi.

It would be a surprise if India’s selectors waited long. Plenty of young talents have been fast-tracked since Tendulkar, but few have carried this kind of inevitability so early. Suryavanshi doesn’t just look promising - he looks preordained for India colours.

Oddly enough, Suryavanshi’s fast-tracking in 2023 owed as much to chance as to talent.

A Vinoo Mankad Trophy game in Chandigarh - the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI’s) domestic Under-19 competition, and one that selector Thilak Naidu had been assigned to watch - was washed out.

With time on his hands, and having already heard murmurs about a gifted boy from Bihar, Naidu headed to another match being played simultaneously.
That detour proved decisive. There, Suryavanshi - still not a teenager - struck 86 off 76 balls to steer Bihar past Assam, an innings compelling enough to trigger the fast-track that followed.

Naidu was so convinced of Suryavanshi’s ability - backed up by a couple more half-centuries - that he fast-tracked the batter, having had a word with VVS Laxman, who headed the BCCI’s Centre of Excellence in Bangalore.

Suryavanshi found his rhythm at every step up the ladder.

(BBC sport)