When Australia’s next generation got a brutal preview of the batting Supernova that is Vaibhav Suriyavanshi in an under-19s series late last year, the powerful left-hander exchanged bats with a fellow centurion, Steve Hogan.
Equals back then, as the two youngest members of their respective squads, the paths of 14-year-old Vaibhav and 17-year-old Hogan have since diverged. Good judges believe that Hogan will be in the vanguard of the burgeoning Australian generation that lifted last year’s under-19s World Cup and is already starting to make a mark at international level, via Sam Konstas.
Vaibhav Suryavanshi celebrates his century.Credit: AP
But the contrast between Hogan and Vaibhav says much about the two systems in which they are starting out. Vaibhav went on from a 58-ball century in the under-19s Test match in Chennai last October to a six-figure Indian Premier League deal and this week’s extraordinary hundred for Rajasthan against Gujarat.
Overnight in Jaipur, Vaibhav was dismissed for a second-ball duck, as Rajasthan Royals were eliminated from IPL finals contention by Mumbai. That was a reality check of sorts after the wave of global admiration that had come from such luminaries as Sachin Tendulkar, Adam Gilchrist and even Australian Formula 1 hero Oscar Piastri.
Hogan was no slouch himself in cracking 104 from 84 balls in the third youth ODI of last year’s tour, during a 180-run stand with fellow wunderkind Ollie Peake (111). But instead of taking the fast track to the top, Hogan is completing Year 12 in Brisbane, and hopes for the relatively modest reward of a Queensland rookie contract for next season.
In addition to the bat swap, Hogan and Vaibhav chatted cricket, including the myriad questions about how much older than 14 the Indian teenager might be. His birthday is listed as March 27, 2011, but he once said in an interview he would turn 14 on September 23, 2023. That would make him 15 years, 7 months, and 6 days old.
Whatever his actual age, Vaibhav is still a head turner for cricket.
As CricViz analyst Ben Jones has put it, Vaibhav looks “like he was created in a lab to play Twenty20 cricket”. His high backlift, cocked wrists and lavish follow through are ideally modelled for hitting the ball a long way, with something of the flourish that Brian Lara once showcased for the West Indies.
Vaibhav, who comes from the state of Bihar, one of India’s poorest and not a traditional cricket centre, has been coached and cajoled from an early age by his father, and his family have made all manner of sacrifices to get him into professional cricket and the bright lights of the IPL.
“Whoever I am today, it is because of my parents,” he has said. “My mother used to wake up at 2am and go to sleep at 11pm because of my practice and then used to make food for me too. My father left his job for me and now my brother is taking care of things. Things were very difficult at home, but God looks after those who aren’t able to succeed despite putting in hard work.”
Steve Hogan bats at junior level for Queensland.Credit: Cricket Australia
It is not as though Vaibhav’s skills won’t translate to the longer forms of the game. After all, the under-19s century was made in a Youth Test, and Australia’s coach for the tour, Lachlan Stevens, has a vivid memory of how well Vaibhav coped when the quick bowlers tried to test his back foot game.
The new ball pair of Aiden O’Connor and Nathan Schiller should not feel too slighted by their treatment. England’s Jofra Archer has been unable to hurry up Vaibhav in training for Rajasthan, and on Tuesday morning Mohammed Siraj and Ishant Sharma were similarly ineffective.
“The further he hit our bowlers, the more our bowlers tried to bowl things that were intimidating to him and he was not intimidated at all by it,” Stevens said. “I’m not sure if we quite had the armoury to bowl what we bowled, but he certainly dealt with it appropriately.
“It was an extraordinary display of hitting from a young batter opening the innings. Anything from the waist up was dealt with quite severely. He was very confident. I just remember how clean he was hitting the ball.
Cricket prodigy Vaibhav Suryavanshi has created history.
“There was no question when he got it right how effective it was. Between the two sides it was the cleanest ball striking. The brutality of it, the brutality of the execution and the sheer power from such a young human, that’s what stayed with me.”
Hogan, meanwhile, has been prolific in scoring runs at every level, and in Queensland has earned comparisons with the slightly older Konstas.
“He’s just very competent and very measured,” Stevens said. “He likes batting for long periods. He’s not super powerful, although he has got some magnificent shots once he gets in. He’s very much a craftsman in terms of how he goes about it.
“He really builds innings and holds his ground, isn’t flustered by the game too much, he just likes to bat and allow the game to unfold in front of him and then react to that.”
Just last week, Hogan was back in India as part of a training camp in which some scratch matches were played between players from Australia, India and Bangladesh. Wielding his trusty KD bat, Hogan cuffed another century.
“He’s still only 17, Steve, and there’s a lot of factors that go into being a long-term successful player,” Stevens said. “But certainly from a cricketing skill perspective he ticks a lot of the boxes you will need to be able to play for a long period against good players.
“Steve has been playing first grade for Sandgate for a couple of years and batting three there. So he’s been playing senior men’s cricket for a little while and he could be someone who starts to play higher level cricket at an early age. It’s good timing for him in Queensland as they look to some younger players.
“He doesn’t verbalise his game too much, but I think he’s got a computer in that brain that is always thinking about his cricket. He’s constantly wanting to bat and feel what the game is like to him at different times and in different conditions.”
Vaibhav, of course, has vaulted a few levels. He was playing under-16s in Bihar when he was eight, and under-19s while still purportedly 13. The domestic Ranji Trophy tournament is played by no fewer than 38 teams, affording lots more opportunities than the six state programs in Australia.
There will be those who recall other young players who made headlines for being picked at similar ages – Hasan Raza was hailed as a 14-year-old prodigy when he made his Test debut for Pakistan in 1996 but played only sporadically after that. Australia’s youngest-ever Test cricketer and captain was Ian Craig, who over 11 matches battled impossible comparisons with Sir Donald Bradman.
Whether it is Vaibhav, Hogan, or some of the other highly promising youngsters in the Australian system like fellow Queenslander Callum Vidler, Western Australia’s Mahli Beardman or Konstas, the challenge will be to accomplish more than simply starting early. For that, the prime example remains Tendulkar, a precocious Test player at 16 and a legend when he retired at 40.
“There’s quite a pyramid structure here where you have to work your way through the various levels first before you get those opportunities, and then it depends on the strength of the team above you at that point,” Stevens said.
“I’m sure Steven will work his own way through that with the people around him, and hopefully he’s playing a Test match with Sam Konstas at some point in the future.”
