Thirteen-year-old Vaibhav Suryavanshi became the Indian Premier League‘s (IPL) youngest crorepati on Monday when the Rajasthan Royals (RR) secured a bid of Rs 1.10 crore for him at the auction in Jeddah to bring the young batter in their camp. But what generated interest from the 2008 champions for a kid who has just entered his teens? RR’s head coach Rahul Dravid answered that question.
“Vaibhav came to our trials and we were really happy with what we saw,” said Dravid in a video posted by the IPL on ‘X’.
Vaibhav, in fact, appeared for trials for both RR and Delhi Capitals — as told to TOI by his father, Sanjeev Suryavanshi, who is a farmer and a part-time journalist in Tajpur, Samastipur (Bihar).
“Rajasthan and Delhi both had called him up for trial in Nagpur and Delhi,” said the father. “In Nagpur, he was asked to score 17 runs in one over. He hit three huge sixes in the first three balls itself, making him a strong contender for the RR team. He performed excellently in DC trials also. That’s why DC was also interested in buying my son.”
Vaibhav, at a base price of Rs 30 lakh, is the youngest ever in IPL’s history to be in the auction pool, and bagging a deal only made it better for him and his family. Impressed with what they saw of Vaibhav at the trials, both Rajasthan and Delhi went after him, before RR finally secured the left-handed batter.
Vaibhav is currently in Dubai with the Indian team, participating in the U-19 Asia Cup.
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“I think he has got some really good skills,” said former India coach Dravid talking about Vaibhav’s trial. “So we thought it might be a good environment for him to grow.”
Becoming the youngest player to get an IPL deal is not the only record in Vaibhav’s name.
He became the youngest international centurion at 13 years and 188 days earlier this year when scored a century in the first Youth Test between India U-19 and Australia U-19 in Chennai.
His hundred came in just 58 balls, which is an Indian record for fastest Youth Test century and the second fastest in the world.
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Talking about RR’s strategy in finalizing their squad at the two-day auction in the Saudi Arabian port city, Dravid said: “We came into this auction having retained a lot of our core Indian batters. Big target in this auction for us really was bowlers, ensuring that we build a strong bowling attack. I think we achieved that.”
