Can Arya carry on?

It takes one special innings to move a young talent from near anonymity to grabbing all the eyeballs. Numerous young talented players have emerged from the IPL over the years. However, only a few have made it count while most have faded away, finding it difficult to live up to the expectations. Another prodigious talent was on display on Tuesday night at the New Chandigarh Stadium. 

Yet to play FC cricket

The way the 24-year-old Delhi-based Priyansh Arya tore into the Chennai Super Kings’ bowling was a sight to behold. His 39-ball century is the joint fourth fastest in IPL history, but what is unique is that it is the fastest hundred by an uncapped player, be it an Indian or an overseas batter. Leave alone being uncapped, the Delhi-based opener has not even played first-class cricket. He has appeared in only seven List A (50 overs) domestic matches and 21 T20 games for Delhi, yet his maturity stood out. He has joined a small band of batters — Manish Pandey, Paul Valthaty and Yashasvi Jaiswal — to score IPL centuries as uncapped players.

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There is a saying, ‘one swallow does not make a summer.’ In the same manner, one good innings does not make you a great player. It requires consistent performance and even then, there is no guarantee that you will make it big. We have seen the likes of Riyan Parag, Venkatesh Iyer, Devdutt Padikkal, and Vijay Shankar, to name a few, who have caught the attention of the selectors and the experts, but somehow have not made the most of their potential. Thus, it needs to be seen if Arya can consistently follow up on this blistering knock and keep reminding the selectors of his prodigious talent.  

Six sixes in an over last year  

Trained by the famed Delhi coach Sanjay Bharadwaj, Arya first grabbed headlines when he hit six sixes in an over last year on his way to 120 off 50 balls in a Delhi Premier League game conducted by the DDCA. He then continued to impress in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy last year, and finished as Delhi’s top run-scorer, with a highest of 102 in 43 balls against Uttar Pradesh. Based on his DPL performance, Punjab Kings bought him at the Mega Auction in November for R3.8 crore, more than 10 times his base price of Rs 30 lakh.

Arya had started the IPL season with a well-compiled 47 against Gujarat Titans in Ahmedabad. But he could not get going in the next two games, making only eight in Lucknow and a duck in his first home game here in New Chandigarh. Today, with a 39-ball century, he became the joint fourth fastest alongside Travis Head for SRH, but narrowly missed the fastest ton by a Punjab batter, failing to match David Miller’s mark by just one ball. Miller had reached the mark in just 38 balls in 2010 at the old Mohali stadium.

One-man show against CSK

There were praises galore for Arya, especially the way he single-handedly revived the Punjab innings and played some breath-taking strokes on the way, with a couple of them landing in the second tier of the stadium. It will be an interesting few weeks ahead for the young talent who has emerged from the land of Virender Sehwag.

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Priyansh Arya’s century against CSK is the fourth fastest in IPL history and the fastest by an uncapped player