Inspired by 14-year-old Suryavanshi, this UAE youngster sets sights on IPL

Ayaan Misbah was barely five years old when he started driving the ball at a cricket ground in New Delhi. “I loved to hold the bat and it was just a natural instinct to hit the ball far,” Ayaan says.

That zeal to find the sweet spot of the willow with a classically correct technique grew stronger and stronger after Ayaan’s family relocated to Dubai when he was eight.

Now the talented teenager has just led the UAE, his adopted home, to a glorious triumph in the ACC Men’s Under 16 West Zone Cup in Qatar.

The UAE went on an unbeaten run in the league phase before clinching the title with a thumping win over Kuwait in the final.

While each member of the team contributed handsomely, it was Ayaan who stole the show, finishing the tournament as the top-scorer with 545 runs and three hundreds, including a sparkling 143 in the final.

The 16-year-old opening batter, whose hundreds were laced with elegant cover drives, draws inspiration from Virat Kohli’s hunger for big knocks.

“Kohli was enjoying his greatest peak when I first fell in love with cricket. I just loved watching him bat, the cover drives are so exquisite, I just tried to replicate that in my batting,” he says.

“I love his temperament, how it takes the team forward and how he scores those classical hundreds, without taking any risk, I always try to implement that in my batting as well.”

Kohli, the veteran batting legend, is not the only source of inspiration for Ayaan, though.

Vaibhab Suryavanshi, the 14-year-old sensation who became the youngest batter to score a century in the Indian Premier League (IPL) recently, is also inspiring Ayaan to keep working hard on his game.

“Yeah, it really motivates me because it’s amazing what he has done at such a young age. Scoring a hundred in the IPL for a 14-year-old is just incredible,” he says before revealing his biggest dream.

“Of course, I have lots of goals. But right now my main focus is to become a regular in the UAE Under 19 team and play in the Asia Cup. After that, I want to be part of the senior UAE team. Then, of course, it’s a dream to play in the IPL. That’s the biggest goal for me in cricket.”

Finally, Ayaan credited the UAE cricket authorities for the giant strides young players are taking.

The brightest of UAE youngsters is the 19-year-old all-rounder Aayan Afzal Khan who is already making his mark at senior level, even delivering a match-winning T20 spell against New Zealand, a Test-playing country.

“The Emirates Cricket Board has done a wonderful job in grooming young players. They have given us all the support, a lot of practice matches, I don’t think you see that anywhere else at the associate level,” he says.