The 14-year-old slugger who just stunned a billion sports fans

All told, the teenager only took around three dozen swings on Monday night. But that was all it took for a 14-year-old in Jaipur, India, to write his own piece of history in one of the world’s most popular sports.

With the poise of a player twice his age, Vaibhav Suryavanshi hit one of the fastest centuries that Twenty20 cricket has ever seen, smashing 100 runs off only 35 balls. It was only the third batting appearance of Suryavanshi’s professional career—and the most cricket-mad country on Earth couldn’t quite believe what it was watching.

It was as though an eighth-grader had dropped into the major leagues and immediately belted a couple of grand slams.

Even Sachin Tendulkar, one of the greatest players ever to pick up a willow bat, felt compelled to express his admiration to his 41 million followers on social media

“Vaibhav’s fearless approach, bat speed…and transferring the energy behind the ball was the recipe behind a fabulous innings," he wrote on X. “Well played!"

The most stunning part of his achievement is that Suryavanshi wasn’t exactly messing about in his backyard. He pulled off his feat under the bright lights of the Indian Premier League, the country’s most popular sporting competition, where lavishly-funded teams face off in the game’s shorter T20 format.

Unlike contests in the staid world of test cricket, where players wear white sweaters, take breaks for tea, and games unwind over the course of five days, IPL matches unfold in raucous atmospheres and draw huge television audiences. They only take about as long as a baseball game.

So IPL superstars tend to be the aggressive, free-swinging batters who jump all over bowlers and pile up runs as fast as humanly possible. And, in more ways than one, Suryavanshi has already proven that he isn’t one to waste any time.

“The stroke play is one thing: to bat like a grown man is remarkable enough," says Lawrence Booth, the editor of the annual cricket bible known as the Wisden Almanac. “But to perform as if the pressure of the IPL were imaginary is something else."

To fans in India, Suryavanshi’s shooting star had been on the way for a while. He made headlines last November, at the age of 13, when he became the youngest player ever to earn an IPL contract. His talents even sparked a bidding war at the IPL auction, with the Rajasthan Royals laying out around $130,000 to secure his services for the season.

He didn’t take long to live up to the hype. Suryavanshi blasted the first ball he saw high beyond the boundary for six runs—the equivalent of stepping up for his first major-league at-bat and immediately sending it over the outfield fence.

“We knew what he’s capable of and what kind of shots he can play," Royals batting coach Vikram Rathour said after Suryavanshi finished Monday’s victory with 101 runs from 38 balls. “But to do it in front of this kind of crowd and in a situation like this, against a really, really good bowling attack, I think it was really special."

As with any brilliant young prodigy, there have already been questions surrounding Suryavanshi’s exact age. In one video from 2023, he mentions that he would turn 14 in September of that year, according to reports in India. Which would now put him at 15 years old, not 14.

But the craziest part is that even if his age were off by as much as two years, he would still own the record as the youngest player to make his IPL debut. Until this season, the mark had belonged to Prayas Ray Barman, who was 16 years and 157 days old, according to Wisden.

What cricket observers are in no doubt about is that Suryavanshi has a bright future ahead of him. Beyond that, they’re also excited by what his arrival represents. Suryavanshi’s emergence might just signal a shift in the way India brings through cricketing talent. Although the country’s player pool has never been short of numbers, identifying the most promising youngsters from all over the country and fast-tracking them to stardom has historically been a major challenge.

“A one-sport nation of 1.4 billion people ought to dominate that sport," Booth says. “But only in the past decade or so have they sorted out their scouting methods…Players who once slipped through the net are now being picked up."

“It’s a great moment for India," he added, “and a scary moment for everyone else."