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Priyansh Arya grabbed eyeballs with his blistering century in the Delhi Premier League, a local T20 competition in India's capital city. He ended as the leading run-getter in the tournament, scoring 610 runs at 67.55, and a strike-rate of 198.69.

This included two centuries in the tournament, one of which saw him hit six sixes in an over. With scores of 120 (50) and 107* (55) in August, Priyansh was bound to be in the radar of franchises.

6️⃣ 𝐒𝐈𝐗𝐄𝐒 𝐢𝐧 𝐚𝐧 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 🤩

There’s nothing Priyansh Arya can’t do 🔥#AdaniDPLT20 #AdaniDelhiPremierLeagueT20 #DilliKiDahaad | @JioCinema @Sports18 pic.twitter.com/lr7YloC58D

— Delhi Premier League T20 (@DelhiPLT20) August 31, 2024

It wasn't just about the DPL. On Saturday, a day ahead of the opening auction day, Priyansh opened the batting for Delhi in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and carted a 43-ball 102 against an Uttar Pradesh attack featuring Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Shivam Mavi and Piyush Chawla. He hit 10 sixes and five fours, before eventually being run out. In the next game, though, he was dismissed for a nine-ball six.

The Gambhir-Badoni connection

So far, he has played 11 T20 matches, striking at 167.92, and has also played List A cricket for Delhi.

Arya wasn't always an opener: he used to play in the middle order for Delhi U19s. Notably, he scored 271 off 324 from No.3 in a 2017/18 Cooch-Behar Trophy match against Saurashtra U19. He continued to occupy middle-order spots by the time he started playing for India U19s.

Arya is coached by Sanjay Bharadwaj, the childhood coach of the current India head coach Gautam Gambhir and is a good friend of Ayush Badoni, the Lucknow Super Giants player and current Delhi captain. In fact, Badoni was Arya's captain in the Delhi Premier League as well, and the pair had famously stitched a 286-run partnership for the second-wicket in the game where Arya had made 120 (50).

Multiple teams show interest

Among the teams which bid for Arya were the Delhi Capitals, the Mumbai Indians the Royal Challengers Bengaluru, and the Punjab Kings, who eventually made the winning bid of INR 3.8 crore, a 12.6 times increase from his base price of INR 30 lakhs.

With as many as four teams bidding for an uncapped youngster who's not played any first-class cricket yet, it also indicates that Arya must have impressed all these (and maybe more) franchises in the trials they conduct ahead of auctions to look out for potential superstars of the future.

Another indicator of the potential teams see in him, is the fact that the bidding war for him came at a stage in the auction when teams didn't have a lot of purse remaining. In fact, no player bought after Arya went for a higher price than him.

For Punjab Kings specifically, Arya could help fill the gap for the now-retired Shikhar Dhawan, another left-hander who used to open the innings.