15-year-old Suryavanshi scores blistering half-century as Rajasthan hammer Chennai in IPL

[p]Fifteen-year-old Suryavanshi smacked four fours and five sixes in his batting blitz as [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/team/rajasthan-royals/S2MQPiFG/"]Rajasthan[/a] chased down [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/game/cricket/chennai-super-kings-hQRNSDp4/rajasthan-royals-S2MQPiFG/?mid=nJCLtDum"]a victory target of 128 with 7.5 overs to spare in Guwahati[/a].[/p][p]Suryavanshi was the talk of world cricket after making history in last year's Indian Premier League, aged just 14, in a dazzling debut season which included a 35-ball century.[/p][p]The left-handed batsman, who turned 15 last week, survived a dropped catch on the first ball he faced but soon found his groove to pummel the attack.[/p][p]Suryavanshi said his birthday on Friday, March 27th, was low-key as he "went to sleep early" to avoid cake smearing.[/p][p]On his attacking play, he said, "[b]I do think about defence, but today our plan was to control the game in the powerplay because in a small chase, that phase is crucial[/b]."[/p][p]He raced to his fifty in 15 balls with two sixes off Afghanistan left-arm wrist spinner Noor Ahmad to the noise approval of the home crowd.[/p][embed guid="9c0e93b3-2546-4bde-954b-d08d6a54d23f" url="https://x.com/IPL/status/2038680206681256157" social-type="twitter" /][p]Suryavanshi fell when Sarfaraz Khan took a good diving catch in the deep off medium-pace bowler Anshul Kamboj.[/p][p]The prodigy has been in red-hot form as he starred for India in their Under-19 World Cup win in Harare last month, smashing a record-breaking 175 off 80 balls in the final against England.[/p][p]Rajasthan's other opener, Yashasvi Jaiswal, stood firm to hit an unbeaten 38 as he and skipper Riyan Parag, who made 14, steered the team home in 12.1 overs.[/p][p]Rajasthan, who won the inaugural IPL in 2008 under late Australia spin legend Shane Warne, elected to field first and their bowlers set up victory.[/p][p]Fast bowlers Jofra Archer, Nandre Burger and left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja took two wickets each to bundle out five-time champions [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/team/chennai-super-kings/hQRNSDp4/"]Chennai[/a] for 127 in 19.4 overs.[/p][p]India's T20 World Cup hero Sanju Samson was bowled by South African Burger for six on his Chennai debut, and Archer rattled the stumps of skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad for six.[/p][p]Chennai's batting crumbled with number eight Jamie Overton making the total respectable with his 43 off 36 balls.[/p][p]Archer returned impressive figures of 2-19, while Burger claimed 2-26 and was named player of the match.[/p][embed guid="b0adf2e4-bfa5-45ab-9ef3-8fff9114fb18" url="https://x.com/IPL/status/2038673162033054109" social-type="twitter" /][p]"[b]One good thing is, a lot of youngsters in the group, so, probably a nervy start for everyone, but good to get a game behind and good to start with lot of mistakes[/b]," said Gaikwad. "[b]Hopefully it will be just improvement after here[/b]."[/p][p]Chennai veteran M.S. Dhoni is recovering from a calf strain and likely to be out for the first two weeks of the T20 tournament scheduled to end on May 31st.[/p]