Waiting for Vaibhav Sooryavanshi

The world waits for 15-year-old Vaibhav Sooryavanshi to face his first ball in an international game . Picked for the England and Ireland tour, a reward for his spectacular run on the junior circuit and in the IPL, he has sat on the bench for the first few games. This rising anticipation has bred questions. Should he be treated like just another debutant or does he deserve special treatment? Has Indian cricket drafted him way too early or is this a wise call?

In the days to come, the teenager, born in Bihar’s Samastipur, will be facing newer and higher hurdles. In India, a young batting prodigy doesn’t just need to beat the best of cricketing brains plotting his downfall in rival dressing rooms. There are other challenges — intense scrutiny of personal life and unrealistic hype. Before the England tour, Sooryavanshi’s heated exchange with a Sri Lankan player was clipped from the live telecast, the resultant 15 seconds were put out in public for the world to give sermons. Another day in the life of an Indian cricketing prodigy. After getting hit on the head while dealing with a bouncer during the IPL final, former India pacer Irfan Pathan would write that “the father in me” didn’t agree with what he’d just watched.

To its credit, the BCCI has responded: His parents now travel with him, the board covering the cost, an acknowledgment that a cricketer so young should not be alone. It was a thoughtful initiative but not a bullet-proof shield. The board isn’t schooling him, or others as young and talented as him, to manage the fame and funds coming their way. Tennis learned this lesson only after losing several of its talented teenagers. Cricket, as usual, has been slow. Throwing a youngster into the deep end isn’t a problem but being blind to the sharks is.