Having lost five in a row, including three botched run chases, the epitaph for Rajasthan Royals’ 2025 IPL season was as good as written. After those costly failures, you wondered how they would deal with the pressure of chasing 210 against the high-flying Gujarat Titans (GT). But such thoughts clearly didn’t occupy the mind of Vaibhav Suryavanshi whose dazzling 35-ball century shattered the record books and blew GT away. He turned 14 in the first week of this IPL (March 27) and doesn’t look like he’ll be needing a razor any time soon.
The numbers alone are crazy enough – 11 sixes and 7 fours, against an attack that included three India internationals (Mohammed Siraj, Ishant Sharma and Prasidh Krishna) and the most prolific spin bowler in T20 history (Rashid Khan). Starting with an effortless straight six off Siraj and culminating in a 30-run over off Karim Janat that took him from 64 to 94, Suryavanshi put on an exhibition of power-packed strokeplay. Only Chris Gayle (30 balls, against Pune Warriors for Royal Challengers Bengaluru in 2013) has scored a faster IPL hundred.
Long before social media and clips going viral, a 16-year-old Sachin Tendulkar tonked an 18-ball 53 in an exhibition game in Gujranwala (1989). That included an over off Abdul Qadir, the legendary leg-spinner, that read 6-0-4-6-6-6. But Tendulkar had already played for India. Suryavanshi hasn’t even played an Under-19 World Cup yet.
What then made RR shell out a whopping 1.1 crores for his services at last December’s auction, beating out fierce bidding from Delhi Capitals? Perhaps it was his 62-ball 104 in an Under-19 ‘Test’ against Australia in Chennai last September-October, a match in which the run-rate was otherwise well below 4 an over. He played two noteworthy knocks in the U-19 Asia Cup that followed, against UAE and Sri Lanka, but failed in the game against Pakistan and the final with Bangladesh. In the build-up to the auction, there were even accusations that he was 15 and not 13, a charge that his father denied vociferously.
The IPL, however, is Mount Everest next to the small hill that is junior cricket. But if the environment intimidated Suryavanshi, he certainly didn’t show it, smashing the first ball he faced against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) for six over extra-cover. That innings fetched him 34 off 20 balls. Against RCB, there was a relatively sedate 16 off 12.
And then this. Eight of the sixes came in an arc between midwicket and fine leg. Anything slightly short and Boss Baby – as the giant screen at the ground called him – pounced, hammering the ball with enormous power. “I just told him to keep going,” said Yashasvi Jaiswal, his batting partner, to the official broadcaster afterwards. “He was incredible. He plays amazing shots, and works hard in the nets. You can see that. He has the game. He has the temperament and mentality.”
He also has a star cast in front of him if he harbours ambitions of opening for India. Two of the contenders played this match – Jaiswal, who finished with an unbeaten 70 off 40 balls, and Shubman Gill, who made a typically elegant 50-ball 84. But on this manic Monday, neither could keep pace with the teenager who knows not the meaning of fear, and who has yet to feel the pressure of expectation.
“It was my first hundred in the IPL, in my third innings,” said Suryavanshi, with the quiet confidence of one who knows there will be more. “It’s the result of months of practice. It’s like a dream for me.”
And a nightmare for bowlers.
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