The teenager breaking cricket: how Sooryavanshi’s batting is changing game

It is a year ago this weekend that Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, a diminutive left-handed batsman from the remote cricketing region of Bihar, came to global attention when he made his debut for Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League at the reported age of 14 years 23 days, and nine days later struck a 35-ball century against Gujarat Titans.

All that was remarkable enough but, even more remarkably, in the early weeks of this year’s tournament the conversation has already shifted from how a young player can be so good so early to an acceptance among many of the world’s leading players and coaches that the sport has on its hands a prodigy who is doing things no one has done before. “He is going to break cricket,” has become a familiar quip.

It is possible, in fact, that Sooryavanshi’s accepted birthdate of March 27, 2011 is wrong. Few births in rural areas outside India’s major cities are officially recorded and it is not uncommon for young cricketers (or people around them) to understate their years to boost prospects at age-group trials.

There is a YouTube clip of Sooryavanshi speaking three years ago in which he stated that he would turn 15 on September 27, 2023, which would mean he is actually 30 months older than generally claimed. The Indian cricket board last year tightened up the bone-testing system used to estimate ages of young players after debate over how old Sooryavanshi really was, and his father has repeatedly insisted the player has passed all such tests.

Even if it is the case that he is actually 17 years old, rather than 15, the way he wields a bat remains extraordinary.

The important thing is that, although he is about 5ft 8in, he has strong hands, wrists and arms and an amazing knack for locating the middle of the bat, all products of him hitting 400 to 500 balls a day in training as a young boy.

His physical attributes are one thing, another is his single-minded intent to attack every ball from the outset. He treats the powerplay overs the way batsmen used to treat death overs — as a time to swing at everything.

He doesn’t often miss. He hit the first ball he faced in the IPL from Test all-rounder Shardul Thakur for six and two weeks ago deposited his first delivery from Jasprit Bumrah, the world’s most versatile bowler, over the boundary as well, before repeating the trick two balls later.

During Rajasthan net sessions, he likes to smash Jofra Archer and Nandre Burger, the South Africa seamer, to all parts while Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sooryavanshi’s 24-year-old opening partner and himself a superstar in the making, is content to just ride them out.

Using a high backlift that has drawn comparisons with Brian Lara, Sooryavanshi hammers good-length balls in an area just outside off stump that most new-ball bowlers would regard as their safest target. He usually picks length perfectly, but if he does misread it he has the ability to adjust.

When he first faced Josh Hazlewood in a match against Royal Challengers Bangalore last week, he got cramped for room but still managed to cut hard to backward square for four. It was remarkable improvisation and contributed to him powering to 78 off 26 balls as Rajasthan plundered 97 from the powerplay, paving the way for a comfortable win.

That game was one of two this season in which he has scored 15-ball fifties. Dhruv Jurel, a team-mate and an India batsman, said: “We cannot believe how someone can hit like that. When you go in and Vaibhav is smashing every ball, you tend to think nothing is happening on the wicket. Cricket is not as easy as [it seems when] he’s playing.”

Jos Buttler, probably England’s greatest white-ball batsman, is similarly in awe. Before a recent match in Ahmedabad, Sooryavanshi asked to meet Buttler, who conceded he was probably the more starstruck. “He seemed a very humble, down-to-earth boy,” Buttler recalled. “I just said, ‘I don’t know how you play with that freedom’ … maybe that’s the exuberance of youth.”

Kyle Hogg was the bowling coach to the England Under-19 side when they found themselves on the wrong end of a Sooryavanshi masterclass in the Under-19 50-over World Cup final in Harare in February, when he scored 175 off 80 balls, with 15 fours and 15 sixes.

“It’s his mindset that stood out for me,” Hogg, the former Lancashire seamer, said. “He just thinks about hitting good balls to the boundary. You don’t really see that in a lot of international cricketers. He’s looking to take on the bowlers at all times. I don’t know if you can coach the way he hits the ball. The bat above his head creates so much power … his bat speed was ridiculous.

“People thought that doing it in under-19 cricket is different, but we’re now seeing him do it against the best bowlers in the world. We had three 85mph bowlers in our attack, it’s not like it was kids bowling at him, but some of his sixes were going out of the ground. Our lads had never been put under that much pressure before.

“It was intimidating and tough to watch. It was not only testing our players but us as coaches, and how we think about the game. The best thing for me was our lads still had a smile on their faces, and kept trying. They appreciated we were witnessing something special.”

Hogg’s players came across Sooryavanshi last year when he toured with India Under-19 and took 355 runs off England in five 50-over matches at a strike rate of 174, but even by his own standards the Harare performance was exceptional.

“I just think he’ll change the way cricket is played in the next few years,” Hogg added. “Every so often, people come along in sport and change the way people view things.

“He seems to enjoy being the main man. Every time he comes out to bat, the pressure is on him. Everyone expects him to belt it everywhere. He’s dealt with that really well. He’s doing something phenomenal and it definitely works.”

Kumar Sangakkara, Rajasthan’s director of cricket, said that when he first saw Sooryavanshi live three years ago he was struck by how the sound of his bat “was like a gunshot” every time he contacted the ball. “His bat swing is lovely, his movements simple and minimal.”

It is still early days, as Sooryavanshi has only played 23 innings in T20 cricket, but he is scoring substantially faster than anyone else ever has in this format, his strike rate of 215 being 20 per cent better than his nearest rivals. It is not quite the 33 per cent advantage Don Bradman holds in terms of average over everyone else in first-class cricket, but it is significant nonetheless.

His record in long-form cricket is less impressive, with only one score of note in eight Ranji Trophy matches for Bihar. But he has scored two centuries against Australia in Under-19 Test matches, one off 62 balls in Chennai and the other off 78 balls in Brisbane. They are two of the three slowest hundreds he has made.

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