The whims and fancies of being a prodigy Premium

Vaibhav Suryavanshi, the youngest IPL centurion at 14, stuns cricket world with extraordinary talent and potential.

A little under a fortnight ago, the Indian Premier League turned 18. A fortnight prior to that, Vaibhav Suryavanshi celebrated his 14th birthday.

Taken individually, those two sentences are unlikely to excite, merit even a second thought. So what, it happens, right? Events age, even kids grow older. But put them together in context, and Suryavanshi’s extraordinary accomplishment on an irregular Monday night assumes jaw-dropping proportions.

The IPL’s youngest centurion is four years younger than the tournament itself. Now, when did anyone ever foresee that?

The left-hander from Bihar’s Samastipur district went from novelty to sensation in precisely 55 minutes and 35 deliveries. After all, that’s what it took him to bring up his first senior representative hundred. The youngest, by a country mile, to smash a 20-over century. Obviously, therefore, the youngest IPL centurion. The fastest among Indians to get to three figures in the world’s most visible franchise-based T20 tournament, the second fastest of all time, only behind the Universe Boss, Chris Gayle (a ridiculous 30 balls).

In the immediacy of Suryavanshi’s other-worldly (to borrow from Ian Bishop) heroics at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium, the creative artists threw away the urge to resist temptation, hence the moniker ‘Baby Boss.’ Smart, really smart. How the Baby Boss’ career takes off from here will remain the focus of interest for a long time to come.

There is something about David taking on Goliath that appeals to our most basic of senses. David Suryavanshi was up against a plethora of Goliaths in the Gujarat Titans ranks. Mohammed Siraj. Ishant Sharma. Prasidh Krishna. All capable of touching 140 kmphs comfortably, even Ishant, now 36 and pretty much a white-ball specialist. Rashid Khan, the pixie Afghan genius who has lost his mojo somewhat but is still more than a handful. Karim Janat, his compatriot who can bowl a heavy ball and boasts 42 international T20 wickets. And Washington Sundar, that wily off-spinner who has inexplicably been used by most of his teams very sparingly and yet who keeps rising to the occasion whenever he gets his chances.

No one was holding back, you know. No one told each other: ‘Let’s be careful not to hurt the kid.’ Not before he lay into Siraj in the very first over, certainly not after he smashed Ishant to all parts of the park not long thereafter. Jaipur had seen nothing like it. India had seen nothing like it. Scratch that – the cricket world had seen nothing like it.