Last evening’s contest wasn’t just an important one for the home side Rajasthan Royals playing at Jaipur. In fact, it was a must win contest for the team in their hopeful bid to qualify for the Playoffs. The importance of the situation still further up now given the fact that teams like Sunrisers Hyderabad, Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Gujarat Titans are already confirmed to be playing in the final or decisive round. So while it may have been just two points in the end, but the battle accounted for all that much. And in the end, they ended up on the winner’s side a chasing a big total in excess of 200. But it was a familiar young soldier with the bat who did it. Yet again.

You know his name. The bowlers, by now, are familiar with his game. Vaibhav Suryavanshi, who didn’t even find himself drafted in the regular playing XI and featured as an Impact Substitute scored 93 of the 225 runs that his entire Rajathan Royals side scored. He was, by his usually lofty standards of hitting and run scoring, cautious at the start. Being 5 off 10 at one point! But that would soon change after his good mate and captain Yashasvi Jaiswal departed first up.  

What would follow from there on would be an audacious instance of big hitting with many a mighty blow coming in different parts of the ground. Taking just 38 deliveries to score yet another match winning knock, Suryavanshi struck 10 sixes on his own. The rest of the team, combined, struck 5. How’s that for some serious hitting? A strike rate of 244.

But all of that said and done, here’s what stood out. The innocence and simplicity that underlines the agressive on field batter with an uncompromising approach with the bat against the best of bowlers.

Vaibhav Suryavanshi was seen causally removing his lowers, then took off his shoes and after slipping into his sliders was seen carrying his trousers nonchalantly around his shoulders before he walked off from the scene. The simple and fun loving child in him alive and thriving. Meanwhile, several around him watched including the Great man Sir Sunil Gavaskar. All of this perhaps points to one thing that while some of the fans and critics still question Vaibhav Suryavanshi’s age, here he is- in his simplest and purest avatar.