Whiz kid, 15, dominates IPL awards, but he’s too young to drive the prize

Too young to drive the car he won among an armful of awards, 15-year-old whiz kid Vaibhav Suryavanshi sat in the Ahmedabad stands with cricket supremo Jay Shah, as Australia’s Josh Hazlewood and Tim David helped Virat Kohli and Royal Challengers Bangalore win back-to-back IPL trophies.

Suryavanshi, who hammered 72 sixes for the tournament, is the first player to win the emerging player award, the tournament MVP and the orange cap for leading run-maker all in the same season, after crashing his way to 776 runs at a strike rate of better than 237.

He watched part of the final with Shah, who is officially now the International Cricket Council chair but is still clearly the most powerful person as far as the Board of Control for Cricket in India is concerned.

The prize for being the tournament’s “super striker” (the player with the highest strike rate) was a car – the Tata Sierra SUV – which Suryavanshi is too young to drive by three years.

The swag of awards he won is astonishing considering the IPL attracts the best T20 players in the world.

“It feels nice, but there is pressure because I am doing interviews. It is a proud moment and I will try and do well next season, too,” Suryanvashi said at the presentation. “I try to back my game, and if the ball is there to be hit, I go all out for it and just try to play that way.

“How to play the pressure game, how to change myself every game, you can’t play every game in one mode, you need to read the game situation and play according to the team’s requirements. These are my learnings from this season.”

A day after Australia’s ODI team was thrashed in Rawalpindi, RCB won the title for the second time in as many seasons before a heaving crowd at Narendra Modi Stadium.

For Hazlewood, the tournament was timely proof that he can stay on the park for a whole series, although there will be conversations aplenty about whether he and other Australian Test players should take part in next year’s IPL, spliced, as it is, between major Test series against India and England.

“I think the franchise has been put together beautifully,” Hazlewood said. “Not just the players, but I think the support staff, again, it’s a nice, relaxed atmosphere to try to play your best cricket and perform.

“It’s hard to build that culture so quickly when the team changes quite a bit every three years, but it feels like we’ve got that now. Obviously winning helps, but it just feels like the team’s quite a tight unit, and we’re playing for someone else other than ourselves sort of all the time. Three-peat, yeah, I can’t see why not.”

In an IPL dominated by fast scoring, personified by Suryavanshi, the bouncier track in Ahmedabad provided something a little more suited to Hazlewood's skills.

His early dismissal of Gujarat Titans ace and Indian captain Shubman Gill was hugely influential in the result, on the way to figures of 2-37 from his four overs. Hazlewood has formed a useful union with the disciplined seam and swing of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who scooped two wickets of his own.

Their contributions meant that Gujarat could only cobble together a tally of 8-155, having struck just three sixes for the innings – Suryavanshi has made a habit of hitting that many in a single over.

Kohli, then, had a perfect target to chase, although it must be said that part of RCB’s recent dominance has been built on all players batting in a more team-oriented manner. That’s included Kohli taking more risks than he once did.

This target was far less taxing, but Kohli and Venkatesh Iyer made sure it was not going to assume difficult proportions by charging to an opening stand of 62 inside five overs.

The early rush of boundaries meant that after a stutter to 4-91, David was able to play within himself in a 41-run stand with Kohli that put the result beyond doubt.

“It’s been amazing,” Kohli said afterwards. “I mean, we had to wait for so long, and then you know ... just to have a group of guys where you feel like when you are stepping on to the ground, you don’t need to be the one to step up every time.

“There is a guy behind you, around you, who can win games of cricket for you. We have so many man-of-the-match awards spread throughout the group.”

Joining Shah and Suryavanshi in the hospitality boxes were Cricket Australia chair Mike Baird and his England equivalent Richard Thompson, as the final was held hours after an ICC board meeting.

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