Vaibhav Sooryavanshi smashes 97 off 29 balls in IPL eliminator
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi fell three runs short with 97 off 29, a playoff blast that pushed Rajasthan Royals into Qualifier 2 and sharpened the spotlight on a 15-year-old.
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi turned an IPL eliminator into a power-hitting case study, smashing 97 from 29 balls for Rajasthan Royals against Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium in New Chandigarh. He struck 12 sixes, was dismissed on the last ball of the eighth over by Praful Hinge, and still walked away as Player of the Match after Rajasthan Royals posted 243/8 and won by 47 runs to reach Qualifier 2.
The innings was extraordinary even by a league built on extremes. Sooryavanshi’s 97 came at a strike rate of 334.48, and it followed a season in which the teenager had already stacked up numbers that would usually define an established star. He had 452 runs at a strike rate of 229.44 after only 197 deliveries in his IPL career, had scored 93 in a chase against Lucknow Super Giants, and had broken Chris Gayle’s record for most sixes in an IPL season. In a competition where boundary-hitting is routine, Sooryavanshi has made volume look almost secondary to acceleration.
The age profile makes the performance more startling. Sooryavanshi’s published birth date is March 27, 2011, which made him 15 during IPL 2026. He first jolted the league in IPL 2025, when he became the youngest ever centurion in men’s T20 cricket with 101 off 38 balls against Gujarat Titans in Jaipur. That hundred came in 35 deliveries and stood as the second-fastest in IPL history, behind Chris Gayle’s 30-ball century. The gap between a historic hundred at 14 years and 32 days and a near-century in a playoff at 15 is the clearest measure yet of how quickly his ceiling has risen.
The larger question now is not whether Sooryavanshi can clear the ropes. It is how Rajasthan Royals, the BCCI pathway and the wider cricket machine manage the load that comes with it. He has already been called up to India A for a one-day tri-series in Sri Lanka, and the reaction to his eliminator innings, including praise from Sachin Tendulkar, showed how fast a teenager can become a public property. Rajasthan Royals now face the harder assignment: keeping a 15-year-old’s game intact while the franchise, the national setup and the media cycle keep asking for something even bigger.
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