'Vaibhav Suryavanshi not wired for Test cricket as he cannot defend'

Rajasthan Royals' boy wonder Vaibhav Suryavanshi, who became the youngest IPL centurion last week, was dismissed cheaply in consecutive matches. Ajinkya Rahane took a brilliant catch as the 14-year-old was dismissed for 4 off 2 balls while attempting a pull against the Kolkata Knight Riders on Sunday.

Since clubbing a 35-ball century against Gujarat Titans on April 28, the boy from Bihar has struggled to score big. He was dismissed for a second-ball duck by Mumbai Indians' Deepak Chahar on May 1, again after a mishit. In both his dismissals, Suryavanshi tried to go big, aiming to hit the ball as hard as possible.

Suryavanshi's explosive batting recently opened the debate about whether he was ready to play for India. While most experts have commented that he could be an asset for the Indian team in T20s in the future, at least one former international believes Suryavanshi is not an all-format player.

Former Test cricketer Abhinav Mukund discussed Suryavanshi's unorthodox batting grip during ESPN Cricinfo's TimeOut show. Mukund, a left-hand opener himself, thinks Suryavanshi's technique is tailor-made for T20 cricket and might not be effective in Tests.

According to Mukund, Suryavanshi does not have the traditional 'V grip', and has a "very predominant bottom hand". "The way he (Suryavanshi) reacts to a ball, he's got a down-swing first, and then it (bat) goes up. The ball's already landed, and it's almost like a lever-pulley motion, where he is just going."

The 'V grip' is formed using the thumb and index finger, pointed towards the top edge of the bat. Such a grip allows a batter to have more control over shots. But as Suryavanshi uses a grip suited for hard hits, Mukund doesn't think the teenager can play defensive cricket for now.

"So there is no way he can defend a ball. These boys (Priyansh Arya included) are not wired to defend. They're going up (shows bat swing) and smacking the living daylight out of a cricket ball. This is not what we were taught when we were young. This is an entire generation of batters who are T20 specialists at the moment. They might learn to play Test cricket with the way it is going, but for now, anyone doing that (shows the bat swing) was banned at one stage," Mukund said.

The Royals secured the services of Suryavanshi at the IPL auction for an impressive sum of Rs 1.1 crore. He got his break following an injury to captain Sanju Samson.

Meanwhile, despite Suryavanshi's failure with the bat on Sunday, RR came very close to chasing down KKR's 206/4. Stand-in skipper Riyan Parag scored a 45-ball 95, but the RR innings ended at 205/8, a 1-run defeat.