Former Cricketers Weigh In on Rising Star Vaibhav Suryavanshi

Former cricketers Akash Chopra and Sanjay Bangar have spoken out on the 14-year-old sensation Vaibhav Suryavanshi. Vaibhav went viral after he impressed everyone with his powerful century against GT.

In the seven matches he played this season, Vaibhav amassed 252 runs at an impressive strike rate of 206.55. This included his hundred off just 35 balls in his third IPL game.

‘There is some amount of maturity’

“Initially when you saw him – and I’ve seen a lot of his clips and the clips that you end up seeing before the guy actually plays the IPL – [the videos] were all of him hitting sixes, just standing and just delivering, fast bowlers, spinners alike,” Aakash Chopra said on ESPNcricinfo’s Time Out show.

“And then he scored that century, takes centre stage and in that century also, he was just hitting. But now, when you see him waiting patiently at the non-striker’s end and that’s exactly what happened today. When Yashasvi Jaiswal was hitting every ball for a four, he was patiently at the other end.”

“Even in the previous game, when Marco Jansen and Arshdeep Singh were bowling to him, he had a clear-cut plan that ‘if the ball is slightly short, I’m going to play it safely; but if it comes into my range, then it does not matter whether your name is Marco Jansen or Arshdeep Singh, you’re getting deposited into the stands’. So, there is some amount of maturity already for us.”

Bangar Lays Out Vaibhav’s Real Challenge

Now that Suryavanshi is done with RR for the IPL season, Sanjay Bangar wants him to focus fully on the cricket and not the external hype.

“The real challenge for him would be to deal with matters, non-cricketing matters,” Bangar said. “At this stage, how can he stay away from all the hype and the hoopla that will surround him. So, that is a major challenge.”

“Apart from that, can he maintain the same sort of game plan? Because this is something which is god-gifted. Or maybe he’s worked very hard, but there is apparent talent there. And he has to stay true to it. Because there will be whispers that, ‘okay, bat a little bit differently, understand the game, understand the situations’. But all those things will come with time. And I think if he continues in this fashion, you have a guy who can dominate both space and spin.”

“And what I loved about this particular innings is that we saw a lot of off-side shots as well. We saw a couple of shots over covers. We saw some offside cover drives, copybook style. So, it means that it’s not just on-sided here, which came to the fore when they played against GT [Gujarat Titans]. But here you had a greater range of shots. And I think he has to stay true to his game and stick to the game that works well.”

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