Opinion Vaibhav Suryavanshi: Poster boy of a brave, new world of cricket

Even as young men of Vaibhav Suryavanshi’s age are content scoring hundreds in their neighbourhood gullies, the 14-year-old smashed a 35-ball century on the grand stage of the Indian Premier League. Only a teenager, mind uncluttered by the pressure of expectations and unshackled by the game’s conventions, could have imagined and then composed this shuddering stroke-play. It may be that Suryavanshi himself would fail to reproduce this effort. What is certain is that his life and career will never be the same again.

The feats — the youngest to score a hundred in the format, the second fastest centurion ever in the League — seem trivial in comparison to the spectacle of the carnage he inflicted on a brigade of high-class, highly-experienced bowlers. Ishant Sharma was five years past his Test debut when Suryavanshi was born; Mohammed Siraj had already caught the eye of veteran scouts in local leagues; Rashid Khan is the most successful bowler in this format. The pedigree of the bowlers didn’t scare him, the grandness of the stage didn’t subdue him, and the task of hunting down a steep target of 210 didn’t make him flinch. How he reached this stage is also a fascinating story. Born in the cricketing backwater of Tajpur in Samastipur district in Bihar, which has multiple cricketing associations feuding for power, his father sold his farmland to nurture his son’s ambitions. He made such rapid progress that his first-class debut came at 12.

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In a matter of 38 balls, he has become the symbol of a generation, a metaphor of the game getting younger, the poster boy of a brave new world of cricketers. The crew of Priyansh Arya, Digvesh Rathi and Suryavanshi are waiting to conquer the world with free minds and limitless ambitions. This is not the time to wonder where destiny will eventually lead him — to the summit of glory or the valley of unfulfilled renown. It is the time to marvel at his wondrous gifts, of both mind and bat.