Vaibhav Sooryavanshi: At 14, a boy embraces cricketing greatness

Fourteen. It is an age when young boys put up posters of their favourite stars on the walls and cupboards of their room, and in the insides of their compass boxes. After what Vaibhav Sooryavanshi unleashed on the hapless English bowlers on Friday, he himself has become a pin-up star for many boys older than him. Why? Because for a brief period, he threatened to erase the original romance that Indian cricket fans felt for the number 175. Of course, Kapil Dev’s Tunbridge Wells miracle in the 1983 World Cup will always reside rent free in the hearts, minds, and souls of Indian cricket tragics, but Suryavanshi’s savagery, sauciness, and skill has established another Zimbabwe bond — coming in the country’s cricketing cathedral, the Harare Sports Club.

The ingenuity of T20 batting rarely marries technical excellence and purity of strokeplay, needed in longer formats, but Sooryavanshi has that. The fact that he idolises Brian Lara, no stranger to spending long hours at the nets, and copied his bat swing by seeing videos of him stored on his phone, tells us that he knows only the big scores will keep him in sight of the people who matter. A certain Sachin Tendulkar had the same appetite for big runs in those early years of his.



Explaining his bat swing, his personal coach and former Mumbai batter Zubin Bharucha, who Sooryavanshi spoke with last night, says, “Time and space are his greatest assets.” Elaborating, Bharucha says hitting thousands of balls in practice has enabled Sooryavanshi become as good as he is. “His head falls naturally into the ball a la Viv Richards, Tendulkar and Gavaskar. The bat always remains outside the line of the ball. The space, otherwise defined as how far away from the body the elbows work, like an early Tendulkar or AB de Villiers, Richards and Gavaskar.”


When commentators and experts see Sooryavanshi bat, they are struck by the amount of time he has. He seems to have that extra fraction of a second to play the ball. Bharucha explains, “Time is a function created from a long and high back-lift like Lara’s. But that also means he needs to hit thousands of balls in practice because timing and rhythm can go awry since things need syncing with the rest of the body. He often talks about losing this rhythm and feels like he can’t hit a ball. This is normal for batters with that long bat swing.”

But hitting 1,000s of balls in practice needs time and a distraction-free life. Surely, there are more interesting things that consume 14-year-olds, especially someone who already has crores in his bank account. Bharucha avers, “He has immense hunger and he doesn’t need any pushing.”

The youngster also loves to problem-solve by treating nets as a sacrosanct space. Bharucha explains, “He has the diligence to call me before every match and ask how he can adapt. Last night was no different, where the plan was to continue to be positive. He knew England will be bowling yorkers and bouncers to slow him down, and he knew that he had to use the space behind the keeper than just trying to pull every ball.”

When you have someone who is so talented, there will be clamour in India to rush him into big-time cricket quickly, as people suggest he is too good for the Under-19 level. Bharucha wants people to tread with caution and says there is some way to go before calling Sooryavanshi a finished product. “He needs to eliminate errors and know where to score runs,” he cautions.

When probed on the weaknesses, Bharucha, like a tough taskmaster, explains, “He finds it difficult to cut the ball. When in Australia, he found it tough to play the backfoot drive. The leg-side play on the front foot still does not exist because his front foot lands outside the line of the ball. With that back-lift, the short ball can be an issue, because from all that the bat has to do to get to the ball.”

And what about comparisons with Tendulkar? “Tendulkar, even at 14, had a fantastic defensive technique to go with his attacking game. Sooryavanshi is still learning the defensive bit,” says Bharucha.



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