IPL 2016: All you need to know about the Royal Challengers Bangalore youngster Sachin Baby

With the likes of Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers, Royal Challengers Bangalore had the best first three at the start of this season. Their lower middle-order had players like Shane Watson, Sarfaraz Khan and Kedar Jadhav. But as the season has gone on, Gayle and the lower middle order was changed as they were not consistent.

1. Sachin Baby was given a chance and the youngster grabbed the opportunity with both hands. Baby has played four games till now and he has done what is expected out of him i.e. to score runs. Let us take a look at the interesting facts about the promising batsman.

2. Sachin Baby was born on 18th December 1988 in a small town named Thodupuzha in Kerala.

3. The famous story about his name goes like this, ‘On 11th December 1988, 15-year old Sachin Tendulkar scored a century on his first-class debut in Mumbai. A week later, a baby boy was born in Kerala and the cricket crazy father PC Baby, kept his son’s name as Sachin.

4. Baby is a left-handed top-order batsman and he can also bowl right arm off break. But he is more of a batsman.

5.He plays for Kerala in the Ranji Trophy and has an average of 27.18 and 45.22 in First Class and List A matches respectively. In the 44 Twenty20 matches he has played, he has struck the ball at a strike rate of 128.92.

6. Baby made his debut in 2009 but it took him 25 First Class matches to reach to his first century. That was an unbeaten knock of 200 against Hyderabad in December 2014.

7. He was selected by the Rajasthan Royals in 2013 but played four matches (batted in just one match).

8. He made just three runs in that match. Recently he said, “I was relatively inexperienced back then and felt huge pressure as compared to playing in the domestic circuit.&rdqo;

9. Baby has scored 27, 16 and 33 in his last 3 innings and is confident about his batting. He says, “I have always believed in my game. My coach (Daniel Vettori) and captain (Virat Kohli) have backed me right from the beginning.”

10. Baby captains the Kerala ODI team in List A cricket and recently stepped down from the Ranji captaincy in order to concentrate on his batting.

• Along with the IPL teams, Baby has been a part of India A, India B and South Zone teams in the domestic circuit.