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Former Indian cricketer and chief selector Kiran More spoke in awe of Rajasthan Royals (RR) 15-year-old prodigy Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, recalling the days he watched a young Sachin Tendulkar playing and saying that the U19 World Cup winner will bring a lot of glory to the country.
Sooryavanshi has taken the cricketing world by storm. The youngest IPL player ever has been making a killing in the cash-rich league, slamming world-class bowlers for massive sixes within the first ball or over at maximum. The 15-year-old has broken records in U19 ODI cricket, the IPL, T20s, and the List A format with his explosive batting, which, coupled with his exceptional game reading and temperament, makes him a child prodigy that the country has not experienced since the days of Sachin, who was India's youngest international cricketer when he made his debut in 1989. "When I first saw Sachin Tendulkar, who came in the Indian team for the first time and batted against a great bowler, I knew right away that he was something special. The same is with Vaibhav Sooryavanshi; he is special. It is a good thing that we have such a player. He is going to bring great glory to the country. Let him play the way he does. He has been made and well prepared by god for this sport," he said to ANI on the sidelines of the Beyond Reach Premier League (BRPL) trials in Ghaziabad. Sooryavanshi is the leading run-getter in the tournament for RR and third overall, with 579 runs in 13 innings at an average of 44.53 and a strike rate of 236.32, with a century and three fifties. He has hit 53 sixes in the tournament, the most by an Indian in a single IPL edition. Sooryavanshi has taken to the T20 format like a fish to water, scoring 1,280 runs in 31 matches and innings at an average of 42.66 and a strike rate of 217.68, with four centuries and four fifties and best score of 144. In List-A cricket, Sooryavanshi has scored 353 runs in eight innings at an average of 44.12 and a strike rate of 164.95, with a century and a fifty, with a best score of 190. In the U19 WC this year, Suryanvanshi ended up as the second-highest run-getter with 439 runs in seven matches at an average of 62.71 and a strike rate of 169.49, with a century and three fifties and a best score of 175. He smacked a record-breaking 30 sixes in the competition, surpassing South Africa's Dewald Brevis' 18 sixes in the 2022 edition by miles. In fact, he holds the record for the most sixes in U19 WC history. He is also India's leading run-getter in U19 ODIs, with 1,412 runs in 25 innings at 56.48, a strike rate over 165, four centuries, seven fifties, and a best score of 175. However, in red-ball cricket, he has made just 207 runs in eight matches and 12 innings at an average of 17.25, with a fifty to his name. (ANI)
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