Vaibhav Suryavanshi’s extraordinary journey from rural farmland upbringing to Indian Premier League riches might just be beginning
Who is India's record-breaking 14-year-old century maker?
In October, a 13-year-old from India's northeast made global headlines when he pummelled Australia's Under-19s for a 58-ball century in Chennai. In hindsight, the young Aussies might have gotten off lightly.
Six months on and having since turned 14, Vaibhav Suryavanshi smashed an even quicker hundred (this one coming off just 35 balls) against an even better attack (every Gujarat Titans bowler he faced has played Test cricket).
There is some conjecture over whether the Rajasthan Royals prodigy may be older than his reported age; he gave an interview in 2023 suggesting he was to turn 14 that year.
Beyond his qualification for age-group cricket – which the baby-faced teenager might have outgrown anyway – it now hardly seems to matter.
The more pressing question is how far Suryavanshi can take his extraordinary talents inspired by another free-wheeling left-hander, Brian Lara, and honed on a cement pitch laid by his father, Sanjeev, in the backyard of their home on farmland in Samastipur in eastern India.
Sanjeev, whose own dreams of making it as a cricketer had been dashed on Mumbai’s ultra-competitive maidans while working as a nightclub bouncer and at a public toilet, sent his son, aged seven, off to a cricket academy three hours away in Patna.
Although Suryavanshi was too small to run between wickets or face bowling machines, coaches recognised his potential. Bowlers were roped in to travel from nearby villages to help hone his talent.
"We even call people over and give them food and water to ensure they don’t get tired of bowling at this boy because he doesn’t know when to stop batting and people get very tired," Sanjeev told the Indian Express last year.
Suryavanshi scored an unbeaten 332 in a state U19 competition and became the seventh youngest first-class cricketer ever when he turned out for Bihar against Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy in January last year as a 12-year-old. He was three years younger than Sachin Tendulkar when the Little Master made his own first-class debut at 15.
A month after belting the second fastest youth Test ton ever against the Aussie U19s in Chennai last year, Suryavanshi was scooped up by Rajasthan. "I will talk to him and make sure that this IPL auction doesn’t go to his head," Sanjeev told the Press Trust of India. "He still has a long way to go."
His purchase for around A$200k (1.1 crore) was reported as a gimmick, but Rajasthan’s coach Rahul Dravid had been encouraged by his former Test teammate VVS Laxman (now occupying Dravid’s former role as head coach of India’s National Cricket Academy) to take the tyro seriously. Suryavanshi holding his own in the nets against the Royals’ star quick, Jofra Archer, showed he was ready to play.
When Royals captain Sanju Samson suffered a side strain, Suryavanshi was thrown into the fire as the youngest ever IPL debutant. It's a record he would still hold if he is in fact 18 months older than his listed birthdate, which puts him as the first IPL player born after the competition's inception in 2008.
Opening alongside another baby-faced wunderkind, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Suryavanshi's promise was immediately obvious. Off his first ball faced, he carted Shardul Thakur, the 11-Test seamer, over cover for six, the first of five in his initial two knocks.
The fearlessness remarked upon by those who have observed Suryavanshi's rise allowed him to dispatch Mohammad Siraj, Ishant Sharma, Prasidh Krishna and Washington Sundar (the Indian quartet that have more than 400 international caps between them) to all parts of the Royals' pink-tinged Jaipur stadium on Monday.
His first fifty came from 17 balls, his second from 18. Only Rashid Khan managed to pin him down, but even the man considered T20 cricket's foremost spinner could not stop him from lifting his 11th six (an IPL record for a local player) to bring up his ton.
The flourish of Suryavanshi's bat was unmistakably Lara-esque. "He's got a great downswing if you want to go into technique," said Rajasthan’s batting coach Vikram Rathour. "So that helps him generate this kind of power. And today, he just showed everybody actually how good he is."
Suryavanshi's challenge will be to sustain his initial success while handling the scrutiny created by his extraordinary entrance.
The next time Suryavanshi faces an Australian side, there is some chance it could be at a senior level. A mooted Australia A tour of India later this year (the two nations have an ongoing arrangement to play one such series per year) could be an ideal chance to expose him further.
Only time will whether Suryavanshi will be in the mix for India's Test team when Australia tour in early 2027. If his current trajectory continues, he will certainly be knocking on the door.
| Team | M | W | L | T | N/R | NRR | Ded. | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1
KXI
|
14 | 9 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0.372 | 0 | 19 |
|
2
RCB
|
14 | 9 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0.301 | 0 | 19 |
|
3
GUT
|
14 | 9 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0.254 | 0 | 18 |
|
4
MI
|
14 | 8 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 1.142 | 0 | 16 |
|
5
DEL
|
14 | 7 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 0.011 | 0 | 15 |
|
6
SUN
|
14 | 6 | 7 | 0 | 1 | -0.241 | 0 | 13 |
|
7
LSG
|
14 | 6 | 8 | 0 | 0 | -0.376 | 0 | 12 |
|
8
KKR
|
14 | 5 | 7 | 0 | 2 | -0.305 | 0 | 12 |
|
9
RAJ
|
14 | 4 | 10 | 0 | 0 | -0.549 | 0 | 8 |
|
10
CSK
|
14 | 4 | 10 | 0 | 0 | -0.647 | 0 | 8 |
M: Matches played
W: Wins
L: Losses
T: Ties
N/R: No results
NRR: Net Run Rate
Ded.: Deductions
PTS: Total points
Australians at IPL 2025
Chennai Super Kings: Nathan Ellis ($365k)
Delhi Capitals: Mitch Starc ($2.15m), Jake Fraser-McGurk ($1.65m)
Kolkata Knight Riders: Spencer Johnson ($510k)
Lucknow Super Giants: Justin Langer (coach), Mitch Marsh ($623k)
Punjab Kings: Ricky Ponting (coach), Marcus Stoinis ($2m), Glenn Maxwell ($770k), Josh Inglis ($475k), Aaron Hardie ($228k), Xavier Bartlett ($146k)
Royal Challengers Bengaluru: Josh Hazlewood ($2.29m), Tim David ($547k)
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Pat Cummins ($3.7m), Travis Head ($1.2m), Adam Zampa ($440k)