Cricket greats, writers and broadcasters hail 15-year-old Rajasthan Royal opener after his 29-ball 97 in IPL playoffs.
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has been termed a generational talent after the Rajasthan Royals teenager smashed 97 off 29 balls to power his side to victory in their Indian Premier League eliminator against Sunrisers Hyderabad.
The 15-year-old also broke Chris Gayle’s record for most sixes in an IPL season on Wednesday, taking his tally to 65 in the match and surpassing the former West Indies captain’s 59 set in 2012.
Sooryavanshi’s performance helped Rajasthan secure a 47-run win that kept their hopes of reaching the final alive.
Rajasthan will play Gujarat Titans in the second qualifier on Friday, with the winner advancing to Sunday’s final against defending champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru.
Hyderabad assistant coach James Franklin said the teen batter’s potential was frightening.
“I don’t think anyone’s ever seen a talent like this. It’s freakish what he’s doing at the moment,” he told reporters. “To think that he’s potentially got 25 years left in his career, it’s quite scary.
“He’s only going to get better, stronger and more mature with how he bats. So, it’s just devastating at the moment.”
“There’s a very small margin where you could bowl to him,” Franklin said. “He’s an amazing talent that he can start playing around with it [bowling variations] and then start to cause the bowlers to have to go to other places, which tend to then go back into his strength.”
The season’s leading run-scorer struck 12 sixes in his innings, including three in a row off Hyderabad captain Pat Cummins, but fell short of Gayle’s mark for the fastest IPL century off 30 balls.
Sooryavanshi miscued an upper cut to deep third, leaving him visibly dejected after the dismissal as Smaran Ravichandran completed the catch.
“I thought about it [the hundred] after I got out. At that time I was just focusing on contributing as much as I can,” Sooryavanshi said after being named player of the match.
“Hundreds will come, but the goal is to ensure how we win trophies.”
Sooryavanshi, who last year hit the first ball he faced in his IPL career for a six at age 14 and later became the youngest player to score a T20 hundred, has amassed 680 runs this season at a strike rate of 242.85.
Indian cricket great Sachin Tendulkar analysed Sooryavanshi’s batting on social media, saying the baby-faced attacking batter’s technique allows him to play with freedom.
“That innings was nothing short of spectacular!” Tendulkar wrote.
The young player was hailed as the best T20 opener by former England captain Michael Vaughan, who urged India to select him in the national side.
“He is the best T20 opener in the world. India have to pick him,” Vaughan wrote on X.
Cricket author and broadcaster Bharat Sundaresan said that despite the change in bat sizes and record-breaking T20 scores, Sooryavanshi’s achievement was “era-defining”.
“Eight sixes in the first four overs of an innings? What are we watching? This is beyond incredible,” he wrote.
West Indies bowling great Ian Bishop, who is now a cricket commentator, said the quality of Sooryavanshi’s strokes was “rare”.
Former India batter Mohammed Kaif joined in heaping praise on Sooryavanshi, calling him a “wonder boy” in a tweet.