Baba Aparajith makes his mark in T20

And Kancheepuram, the fifth-highest bidder, picked Indrajith ahead of Aparajith, trusting his batting skills. So by default, Aparajith, the 22-year-old former Indian under-19 all-rounder and on paper a stronger bet between the two, was available to VB Chandrasekhar, the owner of Thiruvallur, the sixth seed in the draft.

The surprise, of course, was both Kancheepuram and Thiruvallur went for young blood when big names such as Ravichandran Ashwin, Abhinav Mukund, S. Badrinath and L Balaji were still in the fray. VB, a former Indian international and a graded coach in Chennai, had mentioned he would rather go for young caps for his team. Aparajith, a product of St Bede’s school in Chennai, paid back the trust placed on him by his owner in his first match in TNPL by blasting an unbeaten century (118 off 63 balls) against Karaikudi on Thursday. 

It was his best explosive knock in a limited-over tournament as even in the under-19 World Cup in Australia in 2012, he was more successful as an all-rounder bagging two Man of the Match awards. Of course, this innings will help him realise his desire to be known as a batting all-rounder rather than as a bowling all-rounder. Aparajith will go for the Duleep Trophy tournament now and if the team reaches the final, then he has played the last match for Thiruvallur this season. But he is not unduly worried that his team would miss him much. 

“I do not think the balance will get affected too much because we have a lot of players to make up for another player’s absence. Obviously, it will be good if I was here to lead the side, but we have a good bench strength. Malolan (Rangarajan) will be taking over as the captain of the side once I leave,” he said. 

In fact, it was Malolan who dominated the stand between the two for the fifth wicket initially as he stroked to a quick 30 to ease the pressure on Aparajith, who had raced to 80 off 40-odd balls and then bogged down somewhat. And then in a fit of fury, Aparajith reached his century, the first in TNPL, with two consecutive sixes, much like Virender Sehwag. When the chase was on, the 165run target looked good enough because Thiruvallur did not score many in the first three overs and had lost a wicket too.

 “In the beginning, I was worried a bit. But when the leg-spinner came on, I thought I will take him on. I think Malo (Malolan Rangarajan) played an important knock because after a point, I wasn’t able to hit any runs. Between 80-90, I didn’t hit even a single boundary,” said Aparajith in the  post-match press conference. It may be early days for  Veerans but at least the start seems to have  vindicated VB’s  stand  during the draft.