Vaibhav Sooryavanshi: The teen sensation hitting the IPL for six - Stumped, BBC World Service

0:09 Hello, I'm Allison Mitchell and welcome to Stumped with me from the ABC in Perth

0:13 is Clint Wheeldon and Sunil Gupta for Akashvani is in Kyoto in Japan this week.

0:18 Now the Indian Premier League and Pakistan Super League are both well underway,

0:22 and there have been plenty of talking points so far in week one of action.

0:26 Sunil, let's kick off with the IPL because there has been a lot happening.

0:29 One of the highlights so far, though, has been 15-year-old Vaibhav Sooryavanshi,

0:35 who's picked up where he left off in the previous year.

0:38 I mean, a 15 ball, 50, 15 ball 50 as Rajasthan Royals beat Chennai Super Kings.

0:45 Just incredible.

0:45 Yeah, it reminds me of the Arsenal forward

0:48 who scored his first goal when he was 16.

0:51 And what is it Max Dowman that was his name.

0:54 Well Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, I did a lot of reading up on him.

0:56 And let me tell you, I can write pages of what he's done.

0:59 But let me tell you the salient facts about him.

1:01 He was born in a cricketing backwater, really,

1:04 because Bihar is not really known for its

1:06 cricketers and small place called Samastipur in 2011.

1:10 Ironically or coincidentally, that was the year that India won the World Cup.

1:14 And maybe that got into his genes somewhere, because since then,

1:18 he is a success story from another success

1:21 story from one of the small towns in India.

1:24 He began his cricket training at the age of four,

1:28 and his father enrolled him in a cricketing academy in Patna when he was eight,

1:33 and he and his father used to travel 100km three times a week to go and train.

1:40 At 14, he became the youngest centurion

1:42 in men's T20 cricket after smashing 100 off

1:46 35 balls for the Rajasthan Royals against

1:50 the Gujarat Titans in only his third game.

1:53 And the earlier one was Manish Pandey, which was,

1:56 he was about 19, I think, when he did that.

1:59 So you can imagine that's what is the distance between

2:02 Vaibhav and what the others have done or accomplished is enormous.

2:06 He's now 15 and he's eligible to play

2:08 for the senior team according to ICC rules.

2:11 And in fact, there's this Pakistani cricketer, Kamran Akmal,

2:15 who said he is going to be playing for India and he's going to be a star.

2:18 The way that he's going, certainly,

2:19 because if you look at the recent games he played in the Under-19 World Cup,

2:25 they were in Zimbabwe and Namibia,

2:27 he scored 175 off 80 balls with 15 fours, 15 sixes,

2:36 the most number of sixes in a single edition of the Under-19 World Cup.

2:41 His idol, and the one he actually sort of looked up to when he was growing up,

2:46 was another left hander, Brian Lara.

2:50 And you can understand where those or that impact is coming

2:55 for Vaibhav Sooryavanshi so he is yes, the next big thing.

3:00 Sachin Tendulkar made his Test debut at the age of 16.

3:03 If you remember, against Pakistan in Pakistan when he got hit on the nose.

3:06 He's going to make it earlier the way things are going.

3:09 So there we are.

3:10 We have spoken about him a lot on Stumped already,

3:12 and I think we're going to be speaking about

3:14 him an awful lot in the next decade, and some.

3:17 Clint, I don't know how old your boys are now, but I mean,

3:19 can you imagine them doing this at the age of 13?

3:22 Has the Sooryavanshi hype reached Australia?

3:26 They're 10 and seven and they look like massive underachievers in comparison.

3:30 No, I couldn't, and I would also say that I was at the pub

3:35 in East Perth with the ABC Test commentary team two years ago,

3:39 watching the IPL auction on one of the televisions

3:42 when his name was read out as a 13-year-old.

3:44 And I actually do remember Darren Lehmann saying

3:46 that he was really highly regarded, this kid.

3:48 And we all went, he's 13.

3:50 Like, you've got to be kidding.

3:51 But he's not a household name in Australia just yet.

3:55 But cricket fans certainly know of him.

3:58 I would say has anyone been as hyped up?

4:01 No, because and you mentioned Tendulkar before,

4:03 but there wasn't the IPL to gain this sort of international traction.

4:08 There wasn't social media where we get to see

4:10 the clips of the 14-year-old scoring a domestic T20 century,

4:13 so there wasn't the same sort of hype.

4:16 Tendulkar was 16 and then he made his Test debut.

4:19 But at 15, I can't think of anyone with this sort

4:22 of social media comparison and boost that that he's had.

4:26 And you talk about making the next step.

4:28 He's already facing world class bowlers with what he's doing right now.

4:31 He could definitely take the step up into the T20 format,

4:34 and I'd love to see him play Test cricket in the not too distant future.

4:37 That would be exciting.

4:39 Well, he's certainly making his financial comfort in the IPL,

4:43 and you'd hope then that he would love to test himself

4:46 in the red ball game in that Test arena as well.

4:49 Sunil, what about the competition itself, the IPL?

4:51 First two games were both really high scoring,

4:54 with teams making over 200 and those totals being chased down.

4:57 How much more of that do you think we will see?

5:00 The next few games haven't been quite as high scoring.

5:03 You know one of the reasons why scores have

5:05 been creeping up over the last couple of years,

5:07 especially in the IPL, is the impact player rule.

5:10 And what that means is that we're

5:12 actually playing 12 specialists against 12 specialists.

5:15 The role of the all-rounder in the middle has actually diminished quite a lot.

5:19 And there's been a lot of chatter about that.

5:21 There's been people like Shane Watson and Jos Buttler,

5:25 and in fact, even in India,

5:27 Akshar Patel and Shubman Gill have been talking about

5:30 the fact that this gets the all-rounder out of the game,

5:33 takes the balance out of the international team because they need to have,

5:38 you know, playing time on the field.

5:41 I think this is going to be something that needs to be addressed right now.

5:46 The impact player rule is going to stay until 2027.

5:48 Now, if you look at the flip side of that, what

5:50 it does is of course it makes it better scoring, right.

5:53 You can bring in a good bowler, right?

5:56 Which is why you can, if you can defend you ought to defend low scores.

5:59 You can bring in a top class bowler, a specialist bowler.

6:02 And if you really want to up the ante, then you bring in a top class

6:06 batsman and that's how it's actually progressing today.

6:09 People like to see high scoring games.

6:11 They want to see the sixes.

6:12 They want to see the fours.

6:13 They want to see all the hoopla around that.

6:15 And here's one way of getting that done.

6:17 So that's one of the reasons why it's been high scoring.

6:20 But not all of them.

6:22 And some of them have been around 120, 150, 160.

6:25 And to my mind, those were the more exciting games.

6:28 I mean, I'll come to Clint really,

6:30 because I know you're not such a fan of sixes all the time.

6:33 And horses for courses, isn't it?

6:35 Some people just love seeing the ball clearing the rope at all times,

6:38 and I suppose a big test for that impact player rule will be

6:41 whether that comes into international T20 cricket

6:43 at some point further down the line.

6:45 But yeah, do you want to see the high scoring games all the time?

6:50 No, no.

6:50 And I know this makes me sound like

6:53 a grumpy old man and I'm comfortable with that.

6:55 But the reason why sixes are special is because there's a scarcity to them.

6:59 So if every ball is being carted over the rope,

7:04 then you end up just with this constant level of cheering.

7:07 And that might be exciting to some people,

7:10 but that's that's not what I love about, what I love about even T20 cricket

7:14 and I've thoroughly enjoyed a number of games.

7:17 Well, the Perth Scorchers were one of the best at it.

7:19 Being able to defend low totals,

7:21 I like watching batters have to struggle against top

7:24 quality bowling and when you saw people like AJ Tye,

7:27 for example, who had such a range of deliveries,

7:30 to try to really make it hard for bowlers.

7:33 I really liked watching that, that battle between bat and ball,

7:36 and I think sometimes we miss that.

7:38 Otherwise you might as well just put a bowling machine down

7:41 one end and have people going for the fences at every opportunity.

7:46 I think there needs to be a level where things are mixed up,

7:49 and I think you're right.

7:50 The last couple of games have been a little more on the defensive side.

7:54 We are getting the impact rule in the BBL from next season and again,

7:59 I'm an old man shouting at clouds.

8:00 I didn't like that either, for exactly the same reasons that Sunil spoke about.

8:03 That you just, oh we'll bring in a batter now that we're about to bat.

8:09 These should be your XI.

8:10 One of the tricks about making the decisions over

8:14 a team is how do you balance that side out?

8:17 And again, while franchise cricket is incredibly important,

8:21 you still want international cricket to be the next step.

8:23 And if you never have to have all-rounders,

8:25 then that has an impact on international cricket.

8:28 So yeah, on both fronts, I'm shaking my fist at the clouds going, no, no,

8:32 I don't like either of them,

8:34 but we'll see how it plays out here in the BBL next year.

8:37 And I suspect really that franchise cricket

8:39 is beginning to lead the way, isn't it?

8:41 Innovations that we see in the franchise

8:43 leagues will eventually come to international cricket.

8:45 So on that T20 front,

8:47 I sort of suspect at some point we probably will have the impact

8:50 player and then really that all-rounder role does become so much more redundant.

8:55 If you remember, I would say about ten or 15 years ago,

8:58 Clint, you might remember.

8:59 Ali, you surely remember.

9:00 In the 50 over game,

9:02 they had the rule of a substitute player for a period of time, right.

9:07 And that didn't really work.

9:09 And so they discarded it.

9:11 So, you know, you can say this is, you know, the flip side of the coin,

9:15 the impact player, the substitute player or whatever you'd like to call him,

9:18 but I completely agree with Clint.

9:19 I'm an old fashioned person as well,

9:22 and you want to see a real tussle out there in the middle.

9:25 Now people will argue, hey, you're playing 12 against 12.

9:28 You know what's the big deal, right?

9:30 It's not that one team gets the impact

9:33 player and the other team doesn't get it right.

9:35 Both get the chance.

9:36 So again, coming back to what we said hitting the sixes and hitting the fours.

9:39 That's what gets the crowds going.

9:41 And I dare say today when you write somebody's score

9:44 and you say so many fours and so many sixes,

9:47 there may come a time when they say and so many singles, right?

9:51 That will really show it up.

9:54 I wonder also whether it's I have this, it's like baseball.

9:58 I don't want cricket to become baseball.

10:00 And you have the designated hitter.

10:02 I wonder whether that's a reason why I rail against having this.

10:06 Oh, well, just pinch this person in.

10:08 So that could be a factor as well, I'm prepared to admit.

10:11 Yeah.

10:12 There's certainly something about crafting your XI,

10:13 and that's part of the tactical skill

10:16 of a captain and coach to select appropriately.

10:19 Sunil, I do want to mention Virat Kohli to you because well,

10:22 he's just come in and done what Virat does and scored a barnstorming innings.

10:26 But I also wonder about, you know,

10:28 to what extent the likes of he and Rohit Sharma.

10:31 You know as much as what they give to the younger players,

10:33 how much you think they also learn from the younger

10:36 players when they're playing against and with the kids,

10:38 so to speak, in the franchise teams in the IPL?

10:41 Well, it's not so much learning as observing and seeing,

10:44 you know, how are they actually hitting those big shots?

10:47 And can I add a little bit of that to my repertoire or is it too late?

10:50 You know, I'm set in my ways.

10:51 At the end of the day, as you said, you hit this barnstorming 60 plus,

10:54 you know, going into the top of the order and winning that game.

10:57 So he, I think, is very confident about his game.

11:01 He'll observe he might give tips to them.

11:03 I don't think he's going to accept tips from them.

11:05 I mean they wouldn't want,

11:07 they wouldn't dream of giving him tips or in fact, even Rohit Sharma.

11:10 But there'll be a little bit of observation, certainly.

11:13 The Pakistan Super League, of course has started as well.

11:17 Clint, it's interesting to see the Aussie leg spinner Adam Zampa

11:20 opt out of the IPL to play in the PSL this season.

11:24 What have you made of that decision?

11:26 It sounds like he's he's taking quite a pragmatic approach.

11:29 Yeah I agree.

11:29 I guess he's at the stage of his career

11:32 where he is openly playing for money in franchise cricket.

11:36 It's no longer in franchise cricket testing yourself against the very elite.

11:41 And that is still, with no disrespect to Pakistan, that's still the IPL.

11:44 He's done that in the past.

11:45 I reckon it's a fair thing for a professional to decide that he can earn

11:49 better money for the investment of his time

11:51 by playing in a different league instead,

11:53 and that's where he's opted to go to Pakistan.

11:55 I mean, as we know, you've only got so many internationals,

11:58 you're allowed to play.

11:59 India quite often will pick their own

12:01 spinners ahead of an international spinner.

12:03 They prefer the fast bowlers and the big hitters.

12:06 And that makes sense as well.

12:07 So he's probably decided that for the amount of time I'd be away for the IPL,

12:11 the amount that I'm going to play, I might be better off going here.

12:14 And I think that's that's just a pragmatic choice by a career cricketer.

12:18 And Zampa is not the only high profile Aussie to be featuring in the PSL either.

12:22 No.

12:23 14 of them in total in the PSL.

12:25 There's some big names here that haven't always been outstanding T20 players,

12:29 but Marnus Labuschagne has been a solid T20 player.

12:32 Glenn Maxwell has been an outstanding T20 player.

12:35 Riley Meredith is at the Kingsman,

12:38 who to be honest are not having a great start.

12:40 Josh Philippe, Peter Siddle, Ashton Turner all at the Sultans.

12:44 Ben McDermott, Aaron Hardie are involved.

12:46 David Warner's at Karachi.

12:47 Oh and of course Steve Smith's at the Sultans as well

12:50 and scored a key 46 the other day against the Kingsman.

12:53 So yeah plenty of Aussies about in the PSL.

12:55 And it started of course behind closed doors because of the fuel crisis,

12:59 amid the war in the Middle East and only across two cities as well,

13:03 but Sunil, that that aside, in terms of the actual cricket,

13:06 how similar or different do you see the PSL to the IPL?

13:11 One is the range of cricketers,

13:14 international cricketers who are actually playing and in fact,

13:17 even the domestic cricketers from Pakistan, there have been a lot of chopping

13:21 and changing we've seen in the international team.

13:23 Obviously they come from the PSL, so I think,

13:26 it's still some way to go for them to catch

13:28 up to the hype and the hoopla that the IPL generates.

13:33 You know, even what happens around the field is,

13:35 you know, all the cheerleaders and so on and so forth.

13:38 Those are crowd pullers.

13:39 And they really come in and, as you said,

13:41 they're not going to have crowds because of the fuel crisis,

13:43 but I think they have some way to go to catch up to the IPL.

13:48 Though, I think the IPL will keep

13:51 staying ahead because of exactly what it generates.

13:53 It's got the biggest crowds, it's got the most stadiums, it's got 10 teams.

13:58 What more do you expect?

14:00 It's going to lead the T20 franchises, I think everywhere.

14:03 I think it is good for the PSL that it has got this bigger mix maybe.

14:06 It feels certainly with international players and all the Aussies

14:09 going and people making different decisions based on different things.

14:13 It's not purely that, well, I can earn the most money at the IPL.

14:16 Not every player can, and certainly not for the amount of playing

14:20 time they'll actually get in some cases.

14:22 Well, that's it for Stumped for this week.

14:23 Join us again next time.

14:24 But I'll say thanks to Clint Wheeldon and Sunil Gupta.

14:28 Until then, bye bye.