A 13-Year-Old Indian Prodigy Is Set To Be Cricket’s Transcendent Player In The Future

Midway through the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, it felt quite symbolic that Yashasvi Jaiswal and Virat Kohli were batting in the middle of Optus Stadium as they totally decimated Australia.

The 22-year-old’s Jaiswal’s remarkable array of audacious shots confirmed why he is India’s latest prodigy and the successor to Kohli, their long-time talisman who doubles as the most famous and influential cricketer on the planet.

Jaiswal scored his fourth Test century, and once again passed 150, but it wasn’t quite a passing of the baton because Kohli returned to form with a drought-breaking century and the 36-year-old might still have some gas left.

But not long after their brilliant batting, another Indian phenom was making headlines after 13-year-old Vaibhav Suryavanshi was signed by Rajasthan Royals for $130,000 in the Indian Premier League auction in Saudi Arabia.

He was the youngest player ever selected, but it was not a surprise given he had made international headlines recently after he scored a century against Australia’s under-19 team off just 58 balls.

“He’s (Suryavanshi) been to our high performance centre in Nagpur, he had trials there and really impressed our coaching set-up there,” said Rajasthan chief executive Jake Lush McCrum.

“He’s an incredible talent, we are really excited to have him as part of the franchise. Of course you’ve got to have the confidence he can step up to the IPL level.”

There are no age restrictions for the IPL although 15 is the minimum age for players to compete in international cricket.

It’s a long way off, and there will be a lot of pressure on him whenever he does make his debut in the money-spinning IPL, but Suryavanshi could well prove to be next in the lineage of Indian transcendent players.

It’s a healthy spot for cricket to be in. The popularity of sports is often linked to who their biggest names are.

There is currently fears in the NBA that there just aren’t the players who can carry the torch from legends LeBron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant.

As we recently saw at the Paris Olympics, those three greats remain the most popular and influential players in the league even though a slew of foreign and younger American stars have probably overtaken them on the court.

For cricket, its transcendent players these days come from India – the driving force of the game through economics and sheer fandom. Since India really came of age as the sport’s off-field powerhouse around two decades ago, they’ve had the faces of the sport.

And in a country that worships batters, given they’ve traditionally been blessed with great batters and it is a discipline that is more attractive and pleasing on the eye than the more arduous skill of bowling.

It was once Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni before Kohli took over about a decade ago. And sometime in the next few years – who knows maybe within this five-match series against Australia – Jaiswal will take the belt.

He may one day pass it to Suryavanshi, who might just be the biggest phenom to play cricket. It’s a status reserved for Tendulkar, who made his Test debut at just 16 years of age and became the biggest icon to play the sport. Even probably ahead of Kohli, whose stardom has mirrored the rise of social media and advent of the IPL.

But, regardless, they are the cricketers who are the ultimate drawcards and make their cricket-crazy compatriots stir crazy. In Perth there were fans who weren’t going to attend the match on Sunday, but decided to because it was probably their last chance to watch Kohli in the flesh.

The roar from the terraces when Kohli enters the crease, like Tendulkar before him, is deafening and generates the same giddy reactions anywhere in the world. It’s a special reaction only reserved for the face of Indian cricket.

One day, if everything goes to plan, Vaibhav Suryavanshi will have the same aura.