Manchester, July 4: Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, the 15-year-old boy wonder from Bihar’s Samastipur district, on Saturday became India’s youngest debutant in international cricket surpassing the legendary SachinTendulkar who held the record for nearly 37 years.
The contrast in eras and personalities could not be starker though.
At 16 years and 205 days, Tendulkar walked into the nation’s collective consciousness with a game that was built on solid defence and artistic offence, defined by Mumbai’s school of ‘Khadoos’ batsmanship.
At 15 years and 99 days, Sooryavanshi seems unfamiliar with the concept of defence, his style tailor-made for the demands of cricket’s slam-bang T20 version. And he fittingly made his India debut in the same format, against England here in the second contest of the five-match series.
While Tendulkar’s maiden international game was a grainy live PTV footage in that 1989 Test against Pakistan, Sooryavanshi has entered the cauldron with 4k cameras tracking his every move since he landed in the UK.
The chubby Gen Z teenager is already staring out from the screens of high-end smart phones, a testimony to the immense growth of Indian cricket establishment that has traversed several country miles to become a behemoth.
It’s fair to say that Tendulkar was the cause. Sooryavanshi is the effect.
On that Wednesday of November 1989, Tendulkar stepped out at the National Stadium in Karachi to face an attack that comprised Imran Khan, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Abdul Qadir.
Not since Tendulkar’s emergence has there been such hype around a young cricketer, whose debut is being anticipated by an entire nation.
Since he landed in this part of the world, fans have been making a beeline for selfies.
In fact, such is the craze that a fan was seen taking a selfie with Sooryvanshi’s Rajasthan Royals appointed guardian Romi Bhinder, happy to be clicked even if its with his manager.Everyone wants a piece of Sooryavanshi just like everyone once wanted a bit of Tendulkar. Just that it was pre-internet era in India and now every fan armed with a smart phone is a digital reporter.
The lines have blurred between ‘public figure’ and ‘public property’. Sooryavanshi’s journey has just begun. (PTI)
