No nerves, no mercy: Sooryavanshi 97 sends SunRisers home, Rajasthan closer to final

Brief Scores: Rajasthan Royals (243/8 in 20 overs) beat Sunrisers Hyderabad (196-total in 19.2 overs) by 47 runs in the IPL Eliminator at Mullanpur.

SRH vs RR: HIGHLIGHTS | SCORECARD

The only time Vaibhav Suryavanshi was silenced during the IPL Eliminator in Mullanpur on Wednesday was during a football match. He joined his teammates on the cleat before the throw — and battled. He couldn’t keep possession, lost the ball easily and even attempted a nutmeg on a teammate, but finished second best.

That was the last time anyone beat Vaibhav Suryavanshi on a Wednesday night. The 15-year-old prodigy, who produces one incredible knock after another, produced one of the greatest innings ever seen in an IPL knockout. He smashed 97 off just 29 balls, laying a sensational platform as Rajasthan Royals outclassed SunRisers Hyderabad in the Eliminator to move a step closer to the final.

Suryavanshi hit 12 sixes and five boundaries, he is painfully short of the fastest IPL century ever. Despite losing pace in the dying overs – managing just 63 runs in the last seven – Rajasthan sealed a comfortable 47-run win while defending 243.

The SunRisers crumbled under the weight of the scoreboard. If Sooryavanshi was a story with a bat, it was Jofra Archer who twisted the knife. The England fast bowler almost ended the match in a powerplay as he removed the SunRisers’ batting backbone – Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma and Ishan Kishan – in quick succession, leaving the chase in tatters before it really began.

Ishan Kishan’s 33 off 11 balls offered a brief glimmer of hope to the Hyderabad faithful – many of whom had made the long journey north. But Archer’s pace had already done real damage and leg-spinner Yash Raj Punja, quietly making a name for himself in his first IPL season, snuffed out the biggest threat with the wicket of Heinrich Klaasen in the 18th over.

At 87 for 5, SunRisers were all but done. Those four carried the bulk of their scoring all season. With them gone, so were the hopes of keeping the dream alive. Salil Arora and Nitish Kumar Reddy both chipped in with 35 apiece and showed some spirit, but Jadeja, Burger and Sushant Mishra – the sub Impact Player – ensured there was no miracle. SunRisers were bowled out for 196.

The contrast between the two innings could not have been more stark. Rajasthan’s batting moved like a bullet train – loud, relentless and leaving everything in its wake in a blur. Chasing the SunRisers, by contrast, felt like a bloated three-hour movie with a foregone conclusion: meandering, joyless, and over long before the credits rolled.

Rajasthan now face injury-hit Gujarat Titans in Qualifier 2 at Mullanpur on Friday. It was a cruel end for the SunRisers – a side that missed out on a top-two finish purely on Net Run Rate, only to be comfortably dismantled in a boom-or-bust clash by a 15-year-old who has been doing just that against opposition attacks since the day he arrived on the scene.

DOES SOORYAVANSHI FEEL THE PRESSURE?

How do you even measure pressure when it comes to Suryavanshi? This is the boy who buried England for 175 in 80 balls in the U19 World Cup final earlier this year. And his 10th board exams, a rite of passage that sends most Indian teenagers into a spiral of anxiety? He had the luxury of skipping them altogether. If you’ve been waiting for the IPL Eliminator to find out if he’s haunted by big moments, Wednesday night gave you the answer.

Business as usual. After seeing off a couple of Cummins yorkers in the first over, Suryavanshi did what he does best – hit sixes against bowlers of the highest repute, unfazed by their reputations and focused only on the ball leaving their hand. He hit 12 on the night, taking his season tally to 65 and surpassing Chris Gayle’s record of six in an IPL season.

Twelve of the 29 balls he faced went for sixes. He dismantled Cummins in the third shootout – two half-volleys sent into the stands, then a slower one picked out the early and batted lines deep into the crowd. This made his intentions clear to anyone who was still unsure. He was there to enjoy himself, leaving the anxiety of the elimination game to the seniors around him.

“The coaches told me to repeat what I do in training and enjoy the game,” he said when asked if the big event weighed on him.

Good. If only it were that simple for the other 23 players on the field.

Pat Cummins won the toss and fielded Rajasthan – a decision that looked like a disastrous miscalculation at about eight overs.

Rajasthan Royals posted 243 for 8 in their 20 overs, but the innings was emphatically a tale of two halves. The first half belonged entirely to one man. Three of their bowlers have conceded more than 50 runs – the fifth time this has happened in an IPL innings, and remarkably, each of the previous four came alone against SRH. This time they were on the wrong end.

Pat Cummins took 64 runs – the most by any bowler in the IPL playoffs, eclipsing Varun Aaron’s 63 against CSK in 2012. The Australian skipper had no answer to the 15-year storm that swept through New Chandigarh.

When Suryavanshi fell for 97 in the eighth over, Rajasthan were 103 for 2 and needed someone to carry the momentum forward. Dhruv Jurel emphatically obliged. He brought up his sixth fifty of the season from just 20 balls – his freest run of the series – before falling on the next delivery and pulling Hinge to deep square leg. He’s done enough.

Riyan Parag, nursing a hamstring injury and visibly running cautiously, chipped in with 26 off 12 before being bowled at long-on off Hinge in the 16th over. After that, mortal combat was a struggle. Rajasthan managed just 63 runs in the last seven overs, with the lower order failing to capitalize on the platform the top order laid so brilliantly. Ravindra Jadeja’s inability to set pace in the death overs was exposed again as the senior man made 12 off 9 deliveries while overseas finishers Donnovan Ferreira and Dasun Shanaka were unable to provide a spark.

In an innings that saw 17 sixes hit, there were several instances of the batsmen scrambling between the wickets towards the end. The 243 felt slightly below par. Yes, you read that right. On the good Mullanpur surface, it felt slightly below par, especially against a SunRisers side capable of chasing anything. But as it turned out, it was more than enough.

– The end

Issued by:

Saurabh Kumar

Published on:

27 May 2026 23:37 IST