So high up, so young!

Nothing quite thrills sports fans more than a young sportsperson coming up with a sensational stupendous and scintillating showOn Monday nightmdashIndia with the rest of the worldmdashvirtually stood up and applauded Vaibhav Suryavanshirsquos Indian Premier League IPL century for Rajasthan Royals against Gujarat Titans in JaipurThe lefthanded openerrsquos hundred turned out to be the secondfastest century in IPL history and the youngest to score a hundred in the glitzy T20 leagueGujarat Titans didnrsquot exactly have a pop gun bowling attack Mohd Siraj Ishant Sharma Prasidh Krishna and Rashid Khan have had more than just a bite of international cricketShaun Pollock the former South Africa captain saying on Cricbuzz that Suryavanshirsquos rollicking innings was the greatest individual performance the IPL has seen speaks volumes of the feat Pollock who played in the inaugural edition of the IPL for Mumbai Indians and must have watched Brendon McCullumrsquos tournamentopening ton for Kolkata Knight Riders on television is not given to hyperbole His view on Suryavanshi as an accomplished former allrounder and a sharp analyst must be taken seriously even though many will feel McCullumrsquos ton was the most powerful trigger for the IPL That Suryavanshirsquos sixes 11 outscored the fours 7 reflected the ferocity in his strokeplay and physical strength in his 14yearold frame but letrsquos not forget the timing factorWest Indies fast bowlerturnedcommentator Ian Bishop said on ESPNcricinfo that Suryavanshirsquos knock was ldquophenomenal and mindblowingrdquo Bishop has seen some young talents come good and wither away In 1990 he bowled to a 17yearold Sachin Tendulkar on the Indian stalwartrsquos first Test tour to England I remember the late Madhav Mantri who was manager of that Mohd Azharuddinled and Bishan Singh Bedicoached team telling me that Tendulkar couldnrsquot wait to play the July 16 oneday tour game against Derbyshire because he wanted to face pacy Bishop By the end of the day India were victors by a twowicket margin with Tendulkar peeling off an unbeaten 105 from 149 balls with two sixes and seven fours at ChesterfieldSuryavanshi reminds some observers of Brian Lara but yoursquod be fascinated to see how similar is his six that got him the hundred to Garry Sobersrsquo hit which earned him the six sixesinanover record in 1968 at Swansea where the ball was lostSuryavanshi is a player the great West Indian would love to watch considering he wrote in Cricket Advance ldquoI have always been particularly interested in opening batsmenrdquoSuryavanshirsquos ton didnrsquot come without a warning On his IPL debut against Lucknow Super Giants on April 19 at the same Sawai Mansingh Stadium he smashed 34 off 20 balls while chasing 181 for victory He lit up the venue by smashing the first ball of his IPL career for six off Shardul Thakur Two more maximums followed and his innings qualified as a fine cameo And if fans spotted moist eyes as the teenager walked towards the dugout after Rishabh Pant had him out of his crease their eyes were not letting them down He swung wildly in the next game against hosts Royal Challengers Bengaluru looking to add to his 16 runs but was castled by the foxy Bhuvneshwar Kumar Back at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium Suryavanshi played Demolition Boy against the 2022 champions and 2023 runnersup on MondaySuryavanshirsquos life will never be the same after this sort of performance Expectations will rise and so will the pressure to duplicate a show like this Indeed cricketers will envy his talent but not the kind of burden which comes with his newfound stardom Luckily for him he has simply the bestmdashRahul Dravidmdashto mentor him and the Bengalurubased former India captain and coach and can be a taskmaster A lot of cricketers who played under Dravid will vouch for that Suresh Raina related a story on social media recently about how Dravid didnrsquot like a particular Tshirt he had worn during a tour of Malaysia in 2005 He made the rookie change into a suitable one then and there Rajasthan Royals players over all these years have had the good fortune of turning to Zubin Bharucha to lift their game several notches and Irsquoll be surprised if Suryavanshi hasnrsquot already profited from sessions with the former Mumbai openerLean patches Suryavanshi will undoubtedly face and thatrsquos where he will probably learn the most valuable of lessonsAll branches of the big media tree will want more of Suryavanshi Thatrsquos understandable but he canrsquot satisfy everyone Less than 12 hours after Suryavanshirsquos IPL epic I woke up to a message from an overseas journalist friend ldquoThis Vaibhav has an agent etcrdquo he asked I couldnrsquot provide an answer to the question but what I do know is that Suryavanshi can be an agent of cheer and excitementmiddayrsquos group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stanceHe tweets ClaytonMurzello Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paperatOptionskeyd0ddb8ef8f1a62a8cdd22fac27fc5ea7formatiframeheight90width728params