Football holds many parallels for teen prodigy

Rajasthan Royals signed 13-year-old Vaibhav Suryavanshi, IPL's youngest player, for ₹1.10 crore, sparking hopes despite risks of early promise fading.

“What were you doing at 13?” Rajasthan Royals’s post on X bore a heart in pink, the team’s colour, and the name of the youngest player in Indian Premier League (IPL) history: Vaibhav Suryavanshi. The left-handed batter wasn’t born when the League began in 2008. Now, he’s been signed on a ₹1.10 crore contract – more than triple his base price of ₹30 lakh – after Royals won a bidding war for him with Delhi Capitals in Jeddah

India's Vaibhav Suryavanshi celebrates his half century during an unofficial test cricket match between India U-19 and Australia U-19, at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, in September. (PTI)