So a 15-year-old Indian cricketer has smashed the record for the fastest half-century in 11 balls. The boy, whose name will be forgotten in five years if he fails to replicate this in the cauldron of international cricket, has been hailed as a 'future star'. Naturally.
We love our prodigies, don't we? We anoint them, we worship them, we burn them out. The Victorians had a term for this: the infant phenomenon.
They were right to be wary. The history of sport is littered with infant deities who melted under the sun of expectation. This boy's feat is a statistical curiosity, a footnote in an age of statistical inflation.
The real question is not how many records he can shatter in schoolboy matches, but whether he can survive the relentless commodification of talent that awaits him. The BCCI's machinery is efficient but ruthless. It chews up raw talent and spits out burnt-out cases.
We have seen it with so many. Let him play. Let him enjoy his childhood, if that is still possible.
But spare us the coronation. The Roman Empire did not fall in a day, but it fell. And many a young gladiator was hailed as the next champion before he was fed to the lions.
