Vaibhav Suryavanshi: Rs 1.10-cr IPL contract for 13-year-old, and a rags-to-riches story

A check with a BCCI insider confirms that Vaibhav Suryavanshi’s documents with regards to his age are in order. The Bihar boy was indeed all of 13 years and 243 days on the day he was roped in by Rajasthan Royals for Rs 1.10 crore at the IPL mega auction. At his age, counting the number of zeros in a crore can be difficult. This is life-changing money for Suryavanshi.

He isn’t eligible to play the U-16 Vijay Merchant Trophy because a player has to be a minimum of 14 years of age to be allowed to participate in that tournament. Suryavanshi is not 14 yet, but the IPL or the India U-19 team has no such restrictions. The teenager hogged the limelight after scoring a century (58 balls) against Australia U-19 in a four-day game in Chennai a couple of months ago, opening the batting for India U-19. It was a record-breaking effort, as he became the youngest player in age-group cricket to score a century. The previous record was held by the current Bangladesh captain Najmul Hossain Shanto.

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Suryavanshi was the youngest player ever to be registered for an IPL auction. He had a base price of Rs 30 lakh, but as he went under the hammer, a bidding war ensued between Royals and Delhi Capitals. Royals won it. Later, the franchise CEO Jake Lush McCrum explained the thought process behind signing up the youngster. “He has been to our high performance centre in Nagpur. He had trials there and really impressed our coaching set-up there,” McCrum said after the auction, adding: “He is an incredible talent and of course you have got to have the confidence so he can step up to the IPL level.”