There are some things only young people can do: Eat anything they like; make friends in the blink of an eye; know what skibidi means.
There are some things young people aren't supposed to do: break curfew; lift parental controls on the TV; hit 776 runs at a strike rate of 237 in the IPL.
The most anybody has been able to score at that pace or higher is 70. Romario Shepherd could do that last year because he came in a 6'3" wall of muscle hardened even further by the experience of 90 international cricket matches. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi is 5'7" and he has a bed time.
Prodigies are easy enough to find compared to the work it takes to sustain them. They dominate the age group, a time when everyone is still learning the game on fields where mistakes are expected and tolerated. More pertinently, they are all - gifted or otherwise - at similar points in their journey.
T20 World Cup-winning captain Aaron Finch recently paid tribute to Jasprit Bumrah when a jury of his peers voted him the best short format bowler of the 21st century. In it, he said, "he blew me away the first time I faced him." On April 7, 7.30pm, Sooryavanshi faced Bumrah for the first time. On April 7, 7.31pm, Sooryavanshi hit Bumrah out of the ground.
The public has watched this kid as if he is a parlour trick. Most of them would have been more than content seeing him come off once or twice, even those who first spotted him and paid INR 1.1 crore to bring him in. Some of them might even have been waiting for him to fail, not out of any vindictiveness but simply so the world could make better sense, reflecting the fact that he is no longer on a level playing field.
Over the course of IPL 2026, Sooryavanshi has gone up against World Cup winners and all-time greats. He shouldn't have been able to leave them all in his wake. Not since Kevin McCallister was left home alone have grown men been shown up like this.
There are other sports that prioritise youth. With speed and athleticism playing a major role how results turn out. Basketball, football and soccer have separate and elaborate systems in place to spot new talent. Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Kevin Garnett and Tracy McGrady were all recruited straight out of high school. The NBA has since put rules in place for its athletes to be at least 19 to even be draft eligible. NFL scouts visit college campuses all across America every year. They are barred from recruiting anybody younger. These safeguards are necessary because of the enormous and at times unforgiving swings in fortune a sportsperson goes through.
Cricket doesn't fast track its players quite so quickly although it certainly doesn't shoo them off either. Current Ireland women's captain Gaby Lewis made her international debut when she was 13. Batters, in particular, are told that they usually hit their peak in the late 20s or the early 30s. This is a function of the game itself. Being quick or agile is not nearly as consequential as it is being skilful, resilient and self-aware.
Sooryavanshi ticks all those boxes and has to invest in a fake ID if he wants to toast this success. Sixteen times he went out to bat. Twelve of those were 30-plus scores. Ten of those came at a strike rate of 204 or more. Opposition teams have now caught onto just how big his wicket is. This 15-year-old has had adults doing homework while he himself has been travelling the country on someone else's dime having endless fun. Bro even faked his fans out by asking for money when they asked him for his autograph.
In a reminder of what he can expect from cricket, Sooryavanshi's final innings came in a losing cause. A 96 off 47 balls where he was hit on the head. So, Irfan Pathan posted on X, "I know he is playing against the big boys but the father in me doesn't agree with that." It was a mark of respect though. With qualification to the final on the line, Gujarat Titans had acknowledged him as a threat and went at him with all that they had. A concerted short-ball attack capped his destructive ability but still couldn't take him down. When Sooryavanshi started climbing into them, generating power against bowling that was meant to keep him quiet, one thing became blindingly clear.
His age is a distraction.
It masks his fast hands. That's how he hits them so far. It hides his eagle eye. That's why he scores in a way others can't. It conceals his game sense. He understood GT wanted him to drag their bouncers into the leg side. So he got up on his toes and flat-batted them over the off side which is a much more difficult shot to pull off. There were two boundaries in particular against Jason Holder which were more like tennis serves travelling some 60-plus metres before they bounced.
Sooryavanshi now holds the record for most sixes (72) hit in an IPL season and he's got there without the benefit of any other top-flight cricket experience. Chris Gayle had a Test triple-century and over 15000 runs for West Indies by the time he sent 59 balls into the stands in 2012. And you know what? That tracks. It paints the picture of a man who knew his strengths and his limits and had figured out a way leverage one against the other. How do you explain this? Where do you go for parallels?
There's Lamine Yamal. At 16, he became the youngest goal scorer in the Euros. An equaliser in the semi-final where he dummied Adrien Rabiot who had carried France's midfield in the 2022 World Cup and who had challenged the winger in the lead-up to the game. "You have to do more to play the final," Rabiot said at a press conference. "Talk now" Yamal said when the cameras found him on the pitch at full time with the score 2-1.
Sport tries to exist in a vacuum but for better or worse history and politics find a way through and the impressionable ones can get a bit caught up. The biggest game a Barcelona player can play is the El Clasico. And it is no-holds barred. In 2025, when Yamal was preparing for one, he hinted that Real Madrid try to get the referees on their side, which ended up offering his opponents the motivation they needed to complete a 2-1 victory. The biggest game an India player can play is against Pakistan. And it is no-holds barred. In 2025, when Sooryavanshi was dismissed in one, he was given a send-off and he responded by pointing to his shoe. There's clearly room to grow here, and perhaps lessons for wider society too.
As an example of impact going the other way though, the men's Under-23 state and university tournaments in India, which used to be 50-overs long, have shrunk down to 20. It may just be coincidence that this has happened at the same time Sooryavanshi has shown both the BCCI and especially the IPL, with its vast and tireless networks of scouts always on the lookout for a difference maker, the quality of talent available outside of the top flight and the gains that can be made bringing them up to the surface. About an hour after he nearly hit the fastest ever IPL century, there was a post on X spinning a story of how Mumbai Indians had offered a private island to Sooryavanshi to get him to sign with them. Cleverer entities on social media popped up with less harmful but equally compelling content.
I remember exactly where I was when I was about to become a teenager. Waiting for my dad to pick me up after violin class and the one thing I was excited about - because of all the Famous Five books - was the correlation between turning 13(ish) and having grand adventures. If they could go off and find buried treasure or bring evil doers to justice every summer, then maybe I could at least stay up past 10pm and watch TV. Thanks to a young man from rural Bihar, 13-year-olds and their parents might now consider much more ambitious plans.