Some cricketers possess a remarkable ability to captivate audiences. Some can steal your sense of time.
A Prodigy Remembered
Many believe Sachin Tendulkar possessed that gift. But what do they know of a teenage wonder who never saw the rise of the boy prodigy? What of those who lived too far from the maidans of Mumbai? Or those who had no access to the grainy or high-quality visuals being beamed from Pakistan, England and Australia? What of those not born or too young to understand all that was unfolding in the late 1980s and early 1990s? Lived memory is not the same as inheriting folklore.
Guwahati Spectators Head for the Exit
Around 11.15 PM on Friday, at the Guwahati stadium, a father was ready to leave. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi had departed. The rest of the contest – 73 runs needed off 71 balls with eight wickets in hand – had become a mere formality. The father dismissed his son’s protests to stay, asking him to continue watching the rest of the game on his phone.
As they were leaving, they noticed they weren’t alone. A small but significant crowd were heading towards the exit. The reasons for the collective departure are unknown, but the impulse was understandable – the result of the contest was easy to assume, the entertainment for the day was over.
The timing may have all been a coincidence, or maybe not. Possibly, a spell cast upon nearly 30,000-odd people in attendance had collectively lifted. Virat Kohli had taken a diving catch at long on to remind them that there were messages on their phones to be checked, late traffic to be avoided and other worldly responsibilities to take care of. And hopefully, when the realities of life came queuing up, maybe also remember whose name was imprinted at the back of the jerseys they were wearing, and for whom they came spending the money on their match tickets.
Sooryavanshi’s Impact at IPL 2026
When the Guwahati leg of IPL 2026 had started, Sooryavanshi was simply a boy-wonder, a prospect of the future. By the time it ended, in two weeks, he had shown he was much more than that. Four games into the tournament, sitting atop the run-charts, at a strike rate that’s running its own solo race, he has been the best batter of the tournament, in which he has spared no reputations. Only three days after Jasprit Bumrah and Trent Boult were at the recei