Wonder boy Vaibhav Sooryavanshi thwarted by brutal Jacob Bethell

Sometimes you stumble across history unexpectedly.

For the last two weeks, India have been carrying around their teenage sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi on a work experience trip. The 15-year-old, forced to use his own changing room on account of safeguarding regulations, has been running the drinks and getting fans and pundits alike excited, but ultimately disappointed, about a potential debut.

He was overlooked in Belfast for India’s two T20s against Ireland where he looked set to play. And then in the first of five T20s against England, he was left out once again. Everyone calm down. The boy is here to watch the men, just like the rest of us.

But then at 1:54pm in Manchester, six minutes before the toss, a nylon blue India cap was handed to Sooryavanshi, who acted entirely his age by failing to put it on his head.

At 15 years and 99 days, Sooryavanshi became the youngest ever cricketer to represent India, beating the great Sachin Tendulkar by a year and 106 days. In an act of imperfect symmetry, it was here at Old Trafford that Tendulkar scored his first international century in 1990.

For those unfamiliar with this latest Indian wonderchild, he is a double phenom. Both the youngest and, arguably, the best to ever bat in T20 cricket. In the most recent IPL, he was the top runscorer with a strike-rate of 237. In second place was India’s Test captain Shubman Gill, whose 44 fewer runs came at a strike-rate of 163. Sooryavanshi scores more runs than anyone else. And he scores them faster than anyone else.

In T20 cricket, agency lies with the batter. Increasingly there is a train of thought that ‘good’ and ‘bad’ balls no longer exist. There are just ‘balls’ to which batters are tasked with how to best hit them for six.

Today, facing his first ball from Jofra Archer – and the fourth ball of his innings – Archer speared the ball towards Sooryavanshi’s ribs on a hard length. Sooryavanshi swooped down on one knee, and lifted the ball up over his shoulder so it sailed for six behind him. It was a good ball. It was six runs.

Sooryavanshi has broken cricket in two ways. The first, is that against ‘good’ length balls, Sooryavanshi has a strike-rate of 221 compared to the average batter’s strike-rate of 142. Soon they will just call it ‘length.’

And the second, is that Sooryavanshi plays almost all of his shots with his weight entirely on his back foot. The antithesis of what you or I would have been taught as a child. Where the rest of us were told to have our weight forward to keep the ball on the ground. Sooryavanshi has his weight back to keep the ball off the ground.

The power he generates comes from a violent bat-swing that follows a Zorro-esque path. His blade dips past the perpendicular and attacks the ball from an almost horizontal angle. If that doesn’t make sense, it shouldn’t. We haven’t seen it before.

Some say the fact he plays with his weight back gives him extra time to play the ball that will allow him to transfer his monstrous power in T20 cricket to the patience required in the Test game. On that the jury is still out. One international player, speaking off the record, said Sooryavanshi should never play any other format of the game. He is tailor made for this. Don’t risk weakening your strength in pursuit of strengthening your weakness.

Regardless, today his 14 off 10 balls, and that’s all it was – featuring two sixes, a couple of singles and a handful of swings and misses – was 24 minutes that will go down in history. There is plenty of time yet for the goods to arrive on the international stage to go along with the hype. If he retires from international cricket at the same age as James Anderson did, the year will be 2052.

For those wondering. Yes, there are some doubts about his age, but they are little more than a rounding error. In one interview he gave in 2023, he said he would turn 14 that September, which would make him 18 months older than he is listed. In effect, the world-changing 15-year-old, might be a world-changing 16 year-old. I wouldn’t let it ruin your day.

Despite all this, Sooryavanshi’s first taste of international cricket ended in defeat, as England’s own kid on the block, Jacob Bethell, aged a far less nauseating 22, crunched 76 not out off 46 balls to take England to a four-wicket win and give them a one-nil lead in the five-match series.

At Old Trafford, it was men against boys. And for one more day at least, the men won. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Photograph by Dave Thompson/AP