Cricket’s new world order makes a few players rich while the majority miss out | Jonathan Liew

A 13-year-old has just been signed in the IPL but what protection does he get if form and fitness desert him?

Vaibhav Suryavanshi only makes you feel old. And compared to a 13-year-old Indian batting prodigy, most of us are old. The signing of Suryavanshi by the Rajasthan Royals for £102,000 harvested most of the headline coverage of the recent Indian Premier League auction, and fair enough. The first IPL player born after the release of Friday by Rebecca Black: this is good, shareable content.

On the other hand, Allah Ghazanfar makes you feel both old and useless. The 18-year-old off-spinner, auctioned to Mumbai Indians for £447,000, only took up cricket during the pandemic. I urge you to keep reading that sentence until it makes sense, which it never will. I have a tin of kidney beans in my cupboard that is older than this guy’s cricket career. Apparently Ghazanfar was introduced to the sport by his older brother Atta in 2020. I have open browser tabs that predate that.

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