“We should all start to live before we get too old. Fear is stupid. So are regrets,” Marilyn Monroe famously said in her 1960 interview with author and journalist William J. Weatherby. Batsmen live with the worry that they can be dismissed on any ball, but that doesn’t bother Vaibhav Suryavanshi right now. The 14-year-old scored the second-fastest century ever in the Indian Premier League for the Rajasthan Royals on Monday in their eight-wicket win over Gujarat Titans.
Being carefree and calm is the best state to be in as a a sportsman and Suryavanshi appears to have absorbed the equanimity of the Buddhism of his birthplace in Bihar. When the youngest ever IPL player launched Rashid Khan into the stands to make it to a century, there was a mix of disbelief, awe and joy that these things can happen in real life and not just in the imagination of backyard cricket.
It felt like records were being broken with every free spirit swing of the bat. Suryavanshi became the youngest Indian ever to make an IPL hundred and the youngest batsman to reach three figures in T20s.
More records cascaded down as the number crunchers had a field day in updating the IPL log books. He scored the joint-most sixes – 11 – for an Indian in an IPL innings and the highest boundary percentage in a T20 ton with only seven runs out of 101 not coming via the advertising boards or, more often, flying over them. It was the fastest successful chase of 200-plus in an IPL match.
The Royals rated the Bihar-born boy so highly that they invested $130,000 to buy him as a 13-year-old in last year’s auction. Rajasthan CEO Jake Lush McCrum described the teenager as a “hell of a talent”, a talent that had already been apparent to onlookers when Suryavanshi scored a hundred off 58 balls for India under-19s against their Australian counterparts in October.
The IPL does not have a formal minimum-age requirement and that is a stroke of liberal genius when it opens doors to this fantasy. Now comes the worries about protecting the status of one so young, but the stardust shown by Suryavanshi even drew comments from the Google CEO. “Woke up to watch an 8th grader play in the IPL!!!! What a debut!,” wrote Sundar Pichai on X as the batsman smashed his first ever ball in the IPL for a maximum. He finished with 34 from 20 balls but that was a mere aperitif to the monster maim menu on Monday.
Chasing Gujarat’s competitive 209, powered by Shubman Gill’s 84, the Rajasthan chased down the target with over four overs to spare. Yashasvi Jaiswal was the partner in this cricketing heist, but the current Indian opener’s 70 off 40 balls was sedate compared to what he described as “one of the best innings I have seen.”
The 14-year-old’s idol is Brian Lara, and the West Indian great didn’t take long to come out with some superlatives. “You surely entertained me,” said the left-hander who holds the record for the highest first-class score of 501. Suryavanshi has only played five first class matches for his state, making his entrance at the age of 12.
When Sachin Tendulkar was trying to break into the Bombay Ranji team as a 15-year-old, he burst into tears when erroneously given out caught behind. Suryavanshi’s tears were in full flow too after that cameo a week ago because his innings was cut off in its prime. This time, he could walk back fully satisfied having batted for 18 more balls to score 67 more.
Vaibhav Suryavanshi plays the game like he’s on the console. “I just see the ball and play. It has been a dream to get a 100 in the IPL and today it materialised. There is no fear. I don’t think much, I just focus on playing,” It’s a simple game when there’s no noise between the ears.
One day the media will come for Suryavanshi when he’s considered fair game for criticism. If social media and sponsors will allow, the honeymoon period will be a little longer than normal for a teenager who is doing things that shouldn’t be possible.
