The 15-year-old taking down some of the world’s best bowlers in the Indian Premier League
You are 15 years old and you are batting in the Indian Premier League in the middle of a floodlit stadium.
At the top of the bowlers is Pat Cummins, Australia’s formidable fast bowling pioneer and captain. He’s 32, just over twice your age.
Are you thinking of surviving, getting used to it, surviving the strike? If you are Vaibhav Suryavanshi, you just think about seeing the ball and swinging it cleanly to cross the boundary. Cummins is still chasing the ball as it heads towards the stands in the middle of the goal.
Former Cummins skipper and IPL commentator Aaron Finch is amazed when he sees Suryavanshi in action. ESPNcricinfo He called him the “Sachin Tendulkar of Twenty20” and Finch can’t disagree.
“What amazes me is his ability to hit the ball from first pitch,” Finch told this imprint. “He even goes up against the best bowlers in the world, he has no fear but he also has the ability to sum up situations in the game. As a 15-year-old, that’s an incredible skill to have. He’s mature beyond his years.”
Finch notes that Cummins was not the first player to find Suryavanshi with his first ball to go over the boundary for six.
“The other night, Patty, [Jasprit] Bumrah went for six from the first ball, the first ball of his IPL career to go for six. He has an incredible ability to just see and shoot. It looks nice and still, which is the most important part. A lot of guys move around the crease a little bit, but he stays really still and has great hands, which makes for a pretty good mix.
“I don’t know what he did when he was 15 but I certainly wasn’t thinking of hitting Kagiso Rabada, Bumrah and Cummins all over the park, that’s an extraordinary level of skill that he has.”
Suryavanshi, who made his IPL debut last year at the age of 14, is proving to be a no-go this time around. Hailing from Bihar, the Indian state that also introduced MS Dhoni to the world of cricket, Suryavanshi was molded for a cricket career from his early days and made his Ranji Trophy debut at the age of 12.
Rajasthan Royals have provided him with some world-class mentors, from former coach Rahul Dravid to this year’s scout Kumar Sangakkara, who offered worldly advice after a first-ball duck at the start of the competition.
“Failure is a very strong word,” Sangakkara said. “My message to Vaibhav is that he has to enjoy everything. Be it 100 from 35 balls, 50 from 15 balls or a duck in the first ball; you are allowed to score, you are also allowed to fail.”
“I think the most important thing for Vaibhav is to enjoy playing cricket and he should never lose the freedom with which he plays.”
“And he will figure it all out as he goes along. So sometimes with a batsman like this, the less said the better. I just want him to be a 15-year-old kid who goes out and bats. I’m very happy to have Vaibhav with us.”
Finch noted how Suryavanshi’s media exposure has been carefully calibrated so far. While we live in a very different era to the one when Tendulkar made his debut for India at the age of 16, he is also allowed to bat a bit more than Sam Konstas was able to manage after his 2024 Whirlwind Test debut.
“I haven’t seen him do a lot of interviews before or after games unless he’s winning an award,” Finch said. “So I haven’t seen him come out too much in that regard and that’s a huge endorsement for the Royals as they’ve managed him really well and treated him almost like a child to a point.
“But the excitement for him is real, he’s a really good player. You just have to look at the Under-19 World Cup and the final – even though he’s playing the IPL and there’s a lot of expectation, he comes away from the game and makes 170 from 80 balls and does it in his own way.”
This week, veteran Indian writer and columnist Pradeep Magazine grappled with the seeming unreality of a 15-year-old boy dominating the IPL and grabbing the limelight the way Tendulkar once did.
Magazine wrote: “I doubt whether he is fully aware of the emotional turmoil and expectations the game has already evoked among its followers and stakeholders.” Tribune. “Tendulkar’s foray into cricket stardom was almost “silent” compared to the storm he created even before he played for the country.
“We must remember that he is still a possibility, someone who could rank among the true greats of the game. Tougher tests will come, as they do for everyone, when conditions get tough, bowlers become more threatening and whistling is not always a safe option. Only time will tell whether his defensive wicket is as solid as his attacking instincts.”
But Finch pointed out that Suryavanshi is part of a generation that has grown up entirely in the T20 era, meaning they know his fearless approach to batting far better than the survival-oriented outlook of older players.
“These kids come in and say, ‘If I can hit two or three sixes, this can be my livelihood now,’ and it goes to a different way of thinking,” he said. “It’s not about what’s best in terms of runs on the board, it’s all about impact.
“The conversation around teams has changed a lot. You can get 30, but if it doesn’t help the team you’re pretty expendable because there’s a long list of players who could beat that.”
“Their upbringing now is to grow up watching T20 instead of evolving with it. I learned T20 on the go, I was 20 when T20 started too, so you learn it as you go along. Whereas now that’s the only thing they know more about and that’s why they see the game differently.”
Muttiah Muralitharan is another former player who is now coaching in the IPL and reflects on how little respect young batsmen in the tournament show their bowlers.
“You don’t think [someone with] Bumrah’s caliber arrives and a young boy hits a six [off him] because they will think ‘how will I survive’,” Muralitharan said. “But these days no, ‘how will I hit six’ – that’s their approach.
“Confidence levels have increased as people have shown that this is the way to play the modern game and young people have followed suit.”
Discussions are already raging on when Suryavanshi will graduate to India’s senior team. Finch’s fellow commentator Ambati Rayudu argued that it would make sense to join the senior India squad early, if only to avoid the many “snakes” and fickle fates of the Indian state system.
While Finch wasn’t in the same rush to see Suryavanshi travel the world as an international cricketer, it did allow him to ponder what it would be like to see the left-hander’s prodigious skills in a Test match.
“There is a place for impactful players like this in Test cricket,” he said. “When you think about Rishabh Pant and the point of difference he has, he is a player who can instill real fear in the opposition because he is unpredictable.
“We have seen what Vaibhav can do against the new ball in T20; if he has hit five against an old ball in his 50 overs in Test cricket, what could he do there?”
I’m confused.
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Daniel Brettig is The Age’s chief cricket writer and the author of many books on cricket.Connect with: X.
