Mumbai: Vaibhav Sooryavanshi created history on Monday by becoming the youngest player, at 15 years and 157 days, to score a half-century in Duleep Trophy history during East Zone’s semi-final match against Central Zone at the BCCI Centre of Excellence Ground 1 in Bengaluru.
Sooryavanshi smashed a six off off-spinner Saransh Jain to complete his fifty off 42 balls, breaking a 57-year-old record during the first innings of East Zone. The previous record was held by Laxman Singh, who scored a Duleep Trophy half-century at the age of 16 years and 23 days in the 1969 edition.
Laxman Singh Boheda, who died at age 35 in 1988, was a former Rajasthan opening batter who played 53 First-Class matches from 1966-67 to 1977-78, scoring 2423 runs at an average of 29.54 with four hundreds. His highest score was 231 not out.
Former India Test cricketer, Yajurvindra Singh, a contemporary of Laxman, remembers him as an artistic, free-spirited strokeplayer.
With lineage traceable to Shakti Singh, the brother of the legendary Maharana Pratap of Mewar (Udaipur), Laxman was one of the opening batsmen for the 1967 Indian Schools team to England which played against the MCC Schools at Lord’s where he opened the innings alongside future Indian Test star Mohinder Amarnath.
“Laxman was a very stylish batter, sort of aggressive, not what you have today but a good strokeplayer. A wonderful person, a great opponent to have, we always wanted each other to do well. The first time I saw Laxman was when I was playing for the West Zone schoolboys team and he was in the Central Zone schoolboys team,” recollected Yajurvindra. In Laxman’s penultimate FC season, in 1976, during the Ranji pre-quarterfinal match between Maharashtra and Rajasthan at Jaipur, both Yajurvindra and Laxman scored half-centuries.
Yajurvindra, who held the record for the most catches in a Test match, said Laxman’s ability was much more than the runs he made.
“He was extremely talented, had that flair, wristwork, and an artistic player but a casual approach compared to a Mumbai player. He was like all of us, get a fifty and be happy. He had a carefree attitude. It was more of the love of sport and playing the game in the correct fashion, rather than looking to make a big career out of it.”
He called Sooryavanshi “a phenomenal talent”, one of those born with natural ability and very shortly, India will have to make him play whatever happens”.
In the Duleep Trophy game, on Monday, the left-handed opener’s attacking 92, off 81 balls, helped East Zone draw level with Central Zone’s first-innings score. Sooryavanshi shared an opening stand of 161 with Abhimanyu Easwaran, who made a compact 69 off 106 balls.
East Zone lost their way after the opening partnership ended, and were bowled out for 266. In the second innings, Central Zone are precariously placed at 45 for three at close.
In the other semi-final, captain Tilak Varma scored an unbeaten 106 while Shreyas Gopal made 87 to give South Zone a first-innings lead of 90 runs against North Zone.
At the start of the day, all eyes were on Sooryavanshi and Central Zone were left to rue a dropped catch by Yash Rathod at backward point off Saransh Jain when he was 40. At the start of his innings, he played and missed some of the deliveries but kept unleashing big hits, smashing seven fours and seven sixes.
His onslaught on the day started with a massive six over mid-wicket off pacer Yash Thakur. A six off off-spinner Saransh Jain took him to his second first-class fifty. There were sixes off Harsh Dubey and Aryan Pandey. He got into his 90s with a six and a four to raise expectations of a hundred. But in trying to slog sweep off Dubey, he holed out to Arshad Khan at deep mid-wicket.