Follow UsRajasthan Royals (RR)’s 14-year-old opener Vaibhav Suryavanshi has grabbed a lot of headlines after smashing the second-fastest century in the history of the Indian Premier League (IPL). The left-hander hit a 35-ball century against Gujarat Titans (GT) and became the youngest centurion in the history of T20 cricket (where data is available).
RR head coach Rahul Dravid said Suryavanshi is a “shy boy” and the franchise made him feel comfortable by creating a friendly environment. "He's been very welcomed," said Dravid said on Star Sports Press Room on April 30 (Wednesday).
"One of the things we've tried to do is make him feel integrated well into this environment. Even after the auction, we had three to four short-duration camps every month leading into the tournament. Vaibhav was there at every one of those camps, getting to know the players and support staff.
"We were conscious of the fact that we wanted him to feel comfortable by the time he came to the IPL. We wanted him to know each and everyone of the players, except the foreign players whom he was meeting for the first time. But he'd met all the Indian players, coaches, admin staff and support staff.
"I'm sure he's having conversations and learning from each of those players, whether it's a (Yashasvi) Jaiswal, (Riyan) Parag, (Dhruv) Jurel or Sanju (Samson). He's built up good connections and friendships with some of the other guys who've played a lot of domestic cricket, like Sandeep Sharma. Even Fazalhaq Farooqi.
"He's a shy boy; he'll take some time to open up, but he's very comfortable here. At no stage does it feel like he's intimidated or he's holding back. There's been a bit of an effort gone into trying to ensure that he's comfortable around the group."
Talking about Suryavanshi’s game style, Dravid said: "At this stage, you don't want to really confuse him with too many things but just trying to allow him to keep it simple and really have some fun and enjoy his cricket.
“Obviously, he likes to play a positive brand of cricket, that's no secret, and we want to encourage him to do that and set it up in such a way that he can play that form of cricket without worrying about it too much."
Dravid also spoke about what makes Suryavanshi so good. "He's got real good bat speed. He's obviously got a high back lift, that's very obvious. A really good hand-eye coordination in terms of judgment of length. What you look for in a young batsman is how quickly he picks length.
"Vaibhav is very quick to pick up anything that's fractionally short or if it's really full, he's really able to capitalise on that. A combination of high back-lift and ability to pick length gives him the power and he seems to have a natural strength which is helpful in these situations."