The Sooryavanshi mania – The Hindu

One August afternoon in 2004, August 16 to be precise, a familiar name popped up on the cell phone screen, indicating an incoming call from a recently retired and highly celebrated Indian fast bowler. The said individual was trying his hand at commentary, and was in Nairobi for a triangular one-day series involving host nation Kenya, and the ‘A’ teams of India and Pakistan.

“Are you watching the match?” the old friend asked, excitedly, breathlessly. Under the mistaken and optimistic impression that he was seeking feedback on his commentary, one mumbled something under the breath when he piped up, “Turn on the TV. Watch this guy, he is something else.”

‘This guy’ was a muscular, long-haired, earthy 23-year-old who had played for Bihar in 1999, and then for Jharkhand from the time the new state was carved out in November 2000. Five years of senior representative cricket had identified him as one for the future, though how much in the immediate future, one wasn’t sure.

Then came the tri-series in Nairobi, where the right-hander batted at No. 3, and produced two bruising hundreds against Pakistan ‘A’, the first of them a day after India’s Independence Day. Batting with a freedom that seemed to be a tribute to the nation attaining independence, he tore into a formidable attack that included Iftikhar Anjum, Riaz Afridi, Mansoor Amjad, Qaiser Abbas and Naved Latif, all of them Pakistan internationals at one stage or the other.

In an innings punctuated by 10 fours and two sixes, ‘this guy’ scored 120 off 122 deliveries, putting on 207 for the second wicket with opener, fellow centurion and current India head coach Gautam Gambhir. It was a muscular exhibition of unfettered ball-striking, an exhibition that made us all forever fans.

As if to show that that wasn’t a flash in the pan, he made a slightly more measured unbeaten 119 in the next league clash against Pakistan, and even though he produced just 15 in the final in which India conquered their arch-rivals, the legend of ‘this guy’ was inescapably, inevitably born.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s decimation of Pakistan ‘A’ was a foretaste was what was to come. Grateful for the timely tip from the former India fast bowler, one was able to glimpse shades of the immense power and great maturity and game-awareness that nestled in his formidable frame.

That ‘A’ tri-series was a bit of a novelty in that it was beamed on live television, a luxury reserved only for internationals at the time (and even now, though T20 leagues too are a regular feature). Nearly 22 years on, another ‘A’ tri-series has fired the imagination even before a ball has been bowled, thanks to the presence in the Indian side of a mercurial 15-year-old who has already become a household name in the cricketing world.

Foregone conclusion

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s inclusion in the Tilak Varma-led squad for the tournament that includes the developmental sides of Sri Lanka and Afghanistan was almost a foregone conclusion, given his exploits for Rajasthan Royals in the IPL. Last season, his first, threw up a 35-ball century (the second fastest in the tournament’s history), when the left-hander was but 14. This year, he snatched the Orange Cap with an extraordinary 776 runs at an otherworldly strike-rate of 237.30. Thrown in were two 15-ball half-centuries and a 36-ball hundred, as well as routine, nonchalant, irreverent decimation of the best fast bowlers in the world.

How can you keep such a special talent out of the international game, never mind his tender age? How can you deprive audiences at the ground and those watching on television the opportunity to soak in this young lad parading his wares on a global canvas, entertaining and enthralling and exhilarating with his fearless batsmanship that is a gift from above, sure, but which has also been honed through hours and hours of single-minded practice that has staggered far wizened men?

The clamour for his inclusion in the Indian T20 side reached a crescendo by the time Rajasthan crashed out of the tournament after losing to Shubman Gill’s Gujarat Titans in Qualifier 2. It’s not the worst idea to give the Indian Test and ODI skipper a first-hand reminder of the damage he can unleash, so Sooryavanshi donned his magic garb and lashed 96 off 47, with eight fours and seven sixes. It was another demonstration of his intelligence and street smartness, as much as his incandescent strokeplay. When he was dismissed in the 90s for the third time in four innings, the stadium felt his pain, even the opponents rued the four runs that got away. Such is the hold Sooryavanshi has on our collective consciousness.

Sooryavanshi has already, unfairly, been saddled with comparisons to the peerless Sachin Tendulkar. Imagine that. The same Sachin Tendulkar who finished his career with more than 34,000 international runs and 100 international tons. The same Sachin Tendulkar, who carried the Indian batting on his shoulders for 24 years, from his debut in 1989 to his last appearance in 2013. The same Sachin Tendulkar, who brought a nation to a standstill when he strode out, bat in hand, to espouse the quality and class of Indian batting with an authority that comes only to the most gifted.

One of the catalysts for this comparison is how both had already grabbed the imagination at a very young age. Tendulkar hit the headlines during the record 664-run stand with Vinod Kambli in the Harris Shield, continued to wow the discerning Mumbai cricketing fraternity with his genius (obvious even when he was 14) and celebrated his Ranji Trophy, Duleep Trophy and Irani Cup debuts with centuries in each of those competitions. He shed tears of disappointment when he was overlooked for India’s tour of the West Indies in early 1989 and relished the prospect of taking on Imran Khan, Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis when he was finally selected for India’s first full series in Pakistan in more than a decade in November 1989. He shooed off physio Ali Irani despite bleeding from a blow to the nose from Waqar in the final Test in Sialkot to conjure a series-saving half-century, and destroyed Abdul Qadir in an exhibition match, smashing the living daylights out of the famed leg-spinner.

Undimmed inner light

All through his career, Tendulkar carried the burden of expectations lightly; it helped that he was his worst critic and was seized by the need to meet his own expectations, not of the others because each of the ‘others’ had a different expectation of him. Ravaged by injuries – sesamoid bone, tennis elbow, dodgy back, protesting groin – but driven by an undimmed inner light, he conquered peaks that appeared insurmountable, all with an equanimity that singled him out as the greatest Indian cricketer of his, potentially of all, time.

How does one compare a 15-year-old who is yet to earn his first international cap with this certified champion, with one of the few on whom Bharat Ratna, the country’s greatest civilian honour, has been conferred? Let’s just let Sooryavanshi be. Let’s let him enjoy himself, and let us enjoy him enjoying himself. Let’s not live out our hopes and dreams vicariously through him because he already has enough to deal with and that is certain to only increase with time.

Over the next two weeks in Dambulla, up in the north of Sri Lanka, Sooryavanshi will be squarely in the limelight, and in the crosshairs of the Sri Lankan and Afghani bowlers. No one likes to be smashed around, but very, very few have received stinging punishment from a 15-year-old who is exceptionally respectful of his elders so long as he doesn’t have a bat in his hands. By now, bowlers of all quality know full well the perils of being even slightly off their game when they bowl to him. Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins and Kagiso Rabada and Jasprit Bumrah and Rashid Khan have all suffered at his hands. If the mere mortals are shuddering in anticipatory trepidation, it’s not without good reason.

Sooryavanshi will be treated differently because of how young he is. Already, the BCCI has permitted his parents to travel with him, both to Sri Lanka and to the United Kingdom later in the month, when he will be a part of the senior Indian team for the first time. That the India board will cover the parents’ travel and living expenses is a laudable initiative designed to send out the message that while there will be every effort to cash in on the goose that lays the golden eggs, it will be done so with empathy and understanding and not be driven purely by crass commercial greed and the lure of the greenbacks.

One isn’t even sure if Sooryavanshi is aware of the magnitude of the fuss around him. The general belief is that he is all too aware, given how much more worldly-wise today’s 15-year-olds are. He is too smart not to realise that he is a special talent who is being given the special, preferential kid-glove treatment that his age merits. He knows that it’s just a matter of time before his bank balance surges, before the agents and the managers swarm him and before he is forced to shed his innocence and embrace wariness. The last two are the unfortunate but inevitable fallouts of courting attention and success this early, but neither Sooryavanshi nor the cricketing populace will have it any other way.

As the sporting world braces for a bouquet of high-octane action – the FIFA World Cup starts on June 11 and the Women’s T20 World Cup gets underway the following day – it is impossible that in India, at the very least, and in several part of the cricketing globe, this relatively nondescript ‘A’ series will attract immense attention only for the presence of a generational talent. One suspects that the Hazlewoods and Cummins might also park themselves in front of devices flashing live visuals, if only to see if the boy wonder subjects the relative ‘lesser lights’ to the same punishment he meted out to them during the IPL.

There was ‘this guy’ in 2004. Now, there is ‘this boy’, a chronicled destroyer of reputations, egos and bowling figures. Single-handedly elevating the stature of an ‘A’ series that would otherwise have wallowed in anonymity but which has now gained a life of its own. Welcome to the world of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, cricketing royalty in the making.