New Delhi: 20-year-old Aditya Thakur is an emerging cricketer. He is currently traveling between cities to improve his batting so that he can make it to the Bihar U-23 team for the 2026-27 domestic season. But whenever Rajasthan Royals Play, he makes sure to watch the game as his younger brother, Vibhu Suryavanshi, plays for the franchise.Aditya hails from Rampur Maheshpur, a village adjacent to Suryavanshi’s village Tajpur in Samastipur. He has been Suryavanshi’s sidearm thrower for the past five years. He is not surprised by the way the youngster is batting: clear and with intent from a ball.
“I am not surprised at all,” Aditya, who is currently training in Jaipur, told TimesofIndia.com.After taking on Mumbai Indians’ Jasprit Bumrah a few days ago, Suryavanshi also smashed Royal Challengers Bangalore seamers Josh Hazlewood and Bhuvneshwar Kumar on Friday evening. He is not bothered by fame or resumes.“Every time he picks up the bat, it’s like Diwali. The shots he plays don’t surprise me. I have worked with him for the last five years, and this is just the beginning,” he said.When asked if it’s like Diwali in Tajpur when they go out to bat, Thakur replied, “Pithake fite hai hai (it seems like crackers are going off all the time).”Suryavanshi hit Bumrah for two sixes in his last match, and on Friday evening, in Guwahati, he went after Hazlewood and Bhuvneshwar. He hit an in-swing yorker from Bhuvneshwar for a boundary.
Rajasthan Royals bowls Vibhu Suryavanshi against Royal Challengers Bengaluru in IPL 2026. (Photo: ANI)
“His backlift is just incredible. When you lift the bat, it usually doesn’t go over your right shoulder. His bat not only goes over his right shoulder, it goes over his head, which is quite rare. If you bowl him a straight yorker at 150, technically he should miss it because you have to bring the bat in front of your head and then go down. But he does it naturally,” explained Vaibhu’s mentor Zubin Bharucha in a chat with this website last year.He made an excellent save for Hazlewood, greeting a deft touch towards square third man. He tinked the next ball over mid-on and completed his hat-trick of boundaries with a brilliant cover drive. But the cherry on the cake was the pull shot over deep square leg for maximum. He scored 19 off Hazlewood’s over and then hit back-to-back sixes off Bhuvneshwar to complete his fifty in just 15 balls.
Every time he picks up the bat, it’s like Diwali. The shots he plays don’t surprise me
Aditya Thakur
Bhuvneshwar told reporters after the match, “I don’t think we could have done much. The way he is hitting shots, he is not slogging. He is playing decent shots. For a 15-year-old, he is very mature. I think the way he is batting, we have to give him credit.Aditya shared an interesting story of how Suryavanshi trains at home on a cement pitch.“He trains three hours in the morning and three hours in the evening every day. Last year, before that IPLhe hit his helmet and went down. His father (Sanjeev Suryavanshi), who was watching from behind the net, was not in a hurry. I got scared and ran to him. He rose by himself and did not bow. For safety purposes, we took him to Patna for MRI. Everything was fine, and he asked the doctor, ‘Sir, by the call Cricket can play?’ (Can I play cricket from tomorrow?) He is a special boy,” Aditya said. At 15, when most people are still learning the game, Suryavanshi is already writing terms for some of the best in the business. Fearless stroke play, clarity of thought. If this is just the beginning, Indian cricket could witness the rise of a generation of talent.
