Teenage sensation Vaibhav Suryavanshi lived up to the hype with a 17-ball 52 as Rajasthan Royals thrashed Chennai Super Kings by eight wickets in their opening IPL match on Monday.
Fifteen-year-old Suryavanshi smacked four fours and five sixes in his batting blitz as Rajasthan chased down a victory target of 128 with 7.5 overs to spare in Guwahati.
Suryavanshi was the talk of world cricket after making history in last year’s Indian Premier League aged just 14 in a dazzling debut season which included a 35-ball century.
The left-handed batsman, who turned 15 last week, survived a dropped catch on the first ball he faced but soon found his groove to pummel the attack.
He raced to his fifty in 15 balls with two sixes off Afghanistan left-arm wrist spinner Noor Ahmad to the noise approval of the home crowd.
Suryavanshi fell when Sarfaraz Khan took a good diving catch in the deep off medium-pace bowler Anshul Kamboj.
The prodigy has been in red hot form as he starred for India in their Under-19 World Cup win in Harare last month, smashing a record-breaking 175 off 80 balls in the final against England.
Rajasthan’s other opener Yashasvi Jaiswal stood firm to hit an unbeaten 38 as he and skipper Riyan Parag, who made 14, steered the team home in 12.1 overs.
Rajasthan, who won the inaugural IPL in 2008 under late Australia spin legend Shane Warne, elected to field first and their bowlers set up victory.
Fast bowlers Jofra Archer, Nandre Burger and left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja took two wickets each to bundle out five-time champions Chennai for 127 in 19.4 overs.
India’s T20 World Cup hero Sanju Smason was bowled by South African Burger for six on his Chennai debut and Archer rattled the stumps of skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad, for six.
Chennai’s batting crumbled with number eight Jamie Overton making the total respectable with his 43 off 36 balls.
Archer returned impressive figures of 2-19, while Burger claimed 2-26.
Chennai veteran M.S. Dhoni is recovering from a calf strain and likely to be out for the first two weeks of the T20 tournament scheduled to end on May 31.
Source: Khaleej Times