Vaibhav's batting comes from a childlike wonder

Probably the best thing to happen to Vaibhav Suryavanshi after his head-banging 35-ball century is that duck on Thursday night.

- Sharda Ugra

Other than dishing out the starter lesson from Cricket 101—that the lessons ain't stopping, boyo—everyone can breathe normally again. Social media can resume hyperventilating about MI Rising (Again) and Rajasthan Royals get the space to look over what has been a messy season.

But even when this IPL is done, there will be no ignoring Suryavanshi. His ascent onto public notice is many Indian cricket things rolled into one. The most soulful of which has to be how news of prodigious young talent almost instinctively, automatically works the levers across Indian cricket. It's like a Chinese whisper about ability in one corner of the country which emerges at the other end, completely accurate, pristine—even pure. An Australian friend said it was the perfecting of 'pathways', ho hum. But what's Suryavanshi's story without a smidgeon of romance?

According to a newspaper report, he was first seen by Bihar junior coach Ashok Kumar in a Patna academy camp. Kumar realised he couldn't pick him for the Under-16s Vijay Merchant Trophy (where players must at least be 14) but he could for the Under-19s Vinoo Mankad Trophy. Where he told the match referee Vishnu Vardhan of the 12-year-old playing. Vardhan sends the video of the 12-year-old's 89 versus Assam to head of Under-19 selectors S Sharath—who then dispatched one of his colleagues to endorse what Sharath had seen on video.