PATNA/KOLKATA: A 13-year-old teen who doesn’t talk much but lets his bat do all the talking was snapped by Rajasthan Royals for Rs 1.10 crore after an intense bidding at the IPL auction, making him the youngest player to play the world’s biggest cricket league.
On Monday evening, at faraway Jeddah, the young Bihar prodigy’s name, Vaibhav Suryavanshi, was engraved on the annals of Indian Premier League (IPL) when he became the youngest player ever at the age of 13 years and 243 days to land an IPL contract.

Vaibhav entered the 2025 IPL mega auction at a base price of Rs 30 lakh as the youngest ever to be listed in the 16-year history of the league. The southpaw was finally bought by the Royals, who outbid intense fight from Delhi Capitals to get the talented teenager with a staggering price.
“He is a kind of player who has come on earth to play cricket and go back. He settles for nothing else,” said Bihar Ranji coach Pramod Kumar.
Kumar, under whose watchful eyes Vaibhav is honing his cricketing skills, said the young southpaw is curious to learn various aspects of the game and has a sharp mind.
“He can hardly talk. But ask him about cricket and he can go on day and night. He never takes any rest on the ground. Even during lunch or tea break, he is with me for fielding practice or knocking away or stretching with a senior player,” he said.

Records came hand-in-hand with Vaibhav as he recently made headlines after becoming the youngest international centurion in the 170-year history of competitive cricket at 13 years and 188 days in September this year.
The opener scored a 62-ball 104, studded with 14 hits to the fence and four towering sixes, in the 1st youth test for India Under-19 against Australia Under-19 in Chennai.
Vaibhav reached the three-figure mark in just 58 balls, which made him the fastest Indian youth test centurion, too, and the second-fastest in the world.
Hailing from Samastipur, Bihar, he was the youngest debutant in Ranji Trophy history when he played against Mumbai at just 12 years and 284 days. With this feat, the rookie broke records held for years by the likes of Yuvraj Singh and Sachin Tendulkar.
“He has always been getting attention from the crowd where he went to play Ranji trophy for being the youngest player and his enthusiasm on the ground,” the coach says, adding he has no fear of fast bowling despite being the youngest in the team.

Sanjeev Suryavanshi, a small farmer in Tajpur, Samastipur, and a part-time journalist with Hindi daily, was on cloud nine when his son Vaibhav called up from Dubai, where he is playing Asia Cup U-19 championship. His first match will be against Pakistan on November 30.
“Rajasthan Royals (RR) and Delhi Capitals (DC) both had called him up for trial in Nagpur and Delhi. In Nagpur, he was asked to score 17 runs in one over. He hit three huge sixes in first three balls itself, making him a strong contender for RR team. He performed excellently in DC trials also. That’s why DC was also interested in buying my son,” the proud father said, while talking to TOI.
Sanjeev recently sold his one kattha of land in Tajpur for the better future of his son’s dream.Vaibhav is also the fourth youngest in the country to make first-class debut and the second youngest from Bihar when he played against Mumbai in Patna on January 6.
Vaibhav played for Bihar in the 2023 edition of the Cooch Behar Trophy. In one of the matches against Jharkhand, he scored 151 runs off 128 balls with the help of 22 fours and three sixes. In the same match, he also scored 76. He also played in a quadrangular series involving India U-19 A, India U-19 B, England U-19 and Bangladesh U-19. He got scores of 53, 74, 0, 41 and 0 in the tournament. So far he has played 5 first-class games.
Suryavanshi’s meteoric rise in the last couple of years is more incredible in the backdrop of the controversy-ravaged Bihar cricket, which has made more news for wrong reasons ever since coming back into BCCI domestic fold from oblivion ahead of the 2018-19 Ranji Trophy.
Five youngest players in IPL