‘Wait a minute, where are we going?’: Sunrisers Hyderabad star recalls Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s nightmare

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi (BCCI/IPL Photo) NEW DELHI: If the greatest knocks of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s record-breaking IPL 2026 campaign were to be ranked, his breathtaking knock against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Eliminator would sit right at the top. With Rajasthan Royals facing a do-or-die encounter, the 15-year-old batting sensation produced one of the most devastating innings in IPL history as he smashed 97 off just 29 balls to take his side past Sunrisers Hyderabad and into the 2nd qualifier. The Bihar prodigy is not done yet. In Qualifier 2 against Gujarat Titans, Sooryavanshi lit up the stage once again with a sensational 96. Although Rajasthan Royals eventually lost by seven wickets and fell short of reaching the final, the teenager had already cemented his place as the best player of the tournament.During his amazing knock against Sunrisers Hyderabad, Sooryavanshi smashed 12 sixes and left the players and fans in disbelief. Among those left stunned was Sunrisers Hyderabad all-rounder Liam Livingstone, a veteran of seven IPL seasons, who admitted he had never seen anything like it.“I’ve never seen anything like it. And I’ve been there; it was my seventh IPL this year. And I’ve played with and against some very good players and I’ve never seen anything like it,” Livingstone said on the Stick to Cricket Podcast.The England all-rounder was particularly impressed with Sooryavanshi’s ability to evolve over the course of the tournament and find answers to every challenge thrown at him by the bowlers.“He’s just the way he hits the ball, he hits the ball so clean, yeah. He never really hits the ball, he never really hits the ball all the time. And wherever the ball is, when we first got him out with the bouncer, the first ball hit him straight up. But then the development he’s made as a player since the start of that tournament and then it was the batting, it was like a bounce and we were on top of the ball. you’d throw it this way, he’d hit it there, he’d hit it there he threw a low full toss, he would throw it over there, ‘Well, wait a minute, where are we going to throw it?'” Livingstone added.Sooryavanshi’s numbers from IPL 2026 have been nothing short of extraordinary. The left-handed batsman finished as the tournament’s top run-scorer as he amassed 776 runs in 16 innings at a stunning pace of 237.30.He also rewrote the record books by smashing 72 sixes during the season, breaking the previous IPL record of 59 sixes set by West Indies’ Chris Gayle.

Which aspect of Sooryavanshi’s acting impressed you the most?

His remarkable campaign included one century and five half-centuries, earning him both the Orange Cap and the Most Valuable Player award.