India's teen batting sensation Vaibhav Suryavanshi continued his record-breaking run in professional cricket as he smashed a whirlwind 144 runs off 42 balls against the UAE in Doha.
The left-handed opener, still only 14 years old, cracked his second T20 century to power his India A team to a big 148-run victory in their Asia Cup Rising Stars match.
Suryavanshi had set the stage alight during the IPL earlier this where he hit the second fastest century in the tournament's history. There, while batting for Rajasthan Royals, the left-handed batter had decimated regular Test level bowlers of Gujarat.
His opponents in Doha on Friday barely had any chance of stopping him once he got going, especially after getting dropped first ball. Suryavanshi hit 11 boundaries and cleared the ropes an astonishing 15 times as he scored 134 of his runs through fours and sixes alone.
Suryavanshi thus became the youngest player to hit a hundred for any men’s national side – at 14 years and 232 days. His strike rate of 324.85 was also the fourth-highest for any men’s T20 hundred.
“I didn't think about the dropped catch. I just thought I'd back my natural game in the T20 format,” Suryavanshi said after the innings.
“I was dropped on the first ball but I decided not to change my intent because the wicket was good. The ground has short boundaries and I decided to back my shots.”
Suryavanshi's innings helped India A breeze past the 200-run by the 13th over.
Captain Jitesh Sharma hit an unbeaten 83 off 32 balls as India A posted 297-4. In response, UAE could only reach 149-7 in 20 overs.
The young opener earlier scored his first century in an Under-19 ODI, smashing 143 off 78 balls against England in Worcester in July.
“Life is such that this is all part of my journey,” he added.
“Whatever has happened in the past, I think about where I was playing then and where I'm playing now, I'm grateful for the chances and it feels good.”
Given his record-breaking form and experience against quality attacks, there are talks of fast-tracking Suryavanshi into the national T20 team, especially after the T20 World Cup next year.
Currently the national team only has Abhishek Sharma as an attacking top order batter with a misfiring Shubman Gill and out-of-form captain Suryakumar Yadav creating a logjam at the top.
Also, the equally attacking Yashasvi Jaiswal is sitting out of the T20 set-up, raising further questions over the tactics of leaving quality T20 specialists out of the bating line-up.
