Vaibhav Suryavanshi’s coach, Manish Ojha, firmly believes that the young sensation will be a part of India’s T20 setup, and following his relentless onslaught in Jaipur against the Gujarat Titans, the 14-year-old took the first step towards that goal. At 14, when teenagers are typically busy with school assignments and playing video games, Suryavanshi, the boy wonder, left an everlasting impression in the cash-rich league. With a whirlwind century that came from just 35 deliveries, Vaibhav lit up the ‘Pink City’.
He became the fastest Indian to slam a ton in the IPL and, overall, the second-fastest after the legendary Chris Gayle.
Manoj was filled with great pride after witnessing his pupil toy with GT’s bowling unit, boasting 694 international caps, with aggression and confidence. Manoj gave a sneak peek into the 14-year-old’s mentality while batting and revealed that the teenager believes in respecting good deliveries and punishing the bowler for loose ones.
“As I said earlier, he will be part of the T20 Indian team, so he has taken the first step towards that goal. The aggressive style he displayed and the confidence with which he was playing were commendable and a matter of great pride for me as a coach. He respects the good ball and punishes the bad ball. This has been his batting tendency right from the beginning,” Manoj told ANI.
Suryavanshi got off the mark with a towering 90m maximum over long-on in the opening over, forcing Mohammed Siraj to admire the effortless marvel along with the rest of the spectators. After the ‘Miyaan Magic’ vanished and Rashid Khan’s spin webs were cut through, Suryavanshi had left GT’s think tank clueless.
While riding on his luck, the young southpaw kept charging at the bowlers with a touch of unorthodox batting technique, even though some of his shots were miscued and safely dropped on the ground. Even after muscling the ball away for 52 runs off 20 in the powerplay, Suryavanshi still wanted to prove he could get 49 in the next 18 deliveries.
Suryavanshi’s 101-run blitzkrieg eventually came to an end on his 38th delivery of the innings. Prasidh Krishan rattled his stumps with a searing yorker, punching the return ticket to Rajasthan’s dressing room. Even after losing the 14-year-old, the damage inflicted was way beyond recovery as Rajasthan relished an 8-wicket triumph.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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