When Vaibhav Sooryavanshi of the Rajasthan Royals lined up to bat against Mitchell Starc of the Delhi Capitals, it was a contest of innocence and experience. Mr Starc is 36, a three-time World Cup winner and regular star in the Indian Premier League (IPL), the sport’s most lucrative franchise-based tournament. Mr Sooryavanshi is 15 and has only played one full season in the IPL. Yet it was the youngster who put in a masterful performance on May 17th, smashing the Australian bowler around the stadium. Though Mr Starc’s team went on to win the game, the onslaught of runs was humbling.
New Chandigarh: Rajasthan Royals’ Vaibhav Sooryavanshi celebrates after the team’s win in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 T20 Eliminator cricket match between Rajasthan Royals and Sunrisers Hyderabad, in New Chandigarh, Wednesday, May 27, 2026. (PTI Photo/Karma Bhutia) (PTI05_27_2026_000736A) *** Local Caption *** (PTI)
For cricket fans, Mr Sooryavanshi’s talent is a source of unalloyed joy. He is lighting up the IPL. This year he has propelled the Royals into the play-offs and a shot at the final on May 31st. He exploded onto the cricket scene last season when, as a 14-year-old, he became the youngest-ever professional player to score a century (100 runs). The achievement prompted disbelief and even scepticism about Mr Sooryavanshi’s age. (His father has rejected such claims, citing bone-density tests.)
Mr Sooryavanshi has continued to rack up runs at an astounding pace. He scores at a rate of 2.4 runs a ball, far higher than any of his peers. An analysis by ESPNcricinfo, a website, found that he scores more off fast, vicious deliveries than anyone else in the league. He recently broke the record for the number of sixes scored in a single IPL season. So far he has cleared the boundary 65 times—six more than the previous record, which stood for 14 years. (He has also matched the record for the fastest half-century in IPL play-off history.) It is hard to think of an athlete in any sport who has been so dominant at such a young age.
Mr Sooryavanshi’s success rests on technique, physique and temperament. He stands up to bowlers with an extravagant backlift, which gives him more room to swing his bat in a long, violent arc. He is burly, which gives him power when striking the ball. Coaches and analysts credit his success to a less tangible quality: an unusual blend of maturity and audacity.
He is also a product of bigger forces. The IPL’s launch in 2008 revolutionised the sport, helping elevate the Twenty20 (T20) format it uses into cricket’s most popular. Unlike traditional Test cricket, played over five days, T20 matches are short and prize power-hitting over patience. Mr Sooryavanshi embodies that philosophy. He has played only a handful of red-ball, or multi-day, matches; one of his early coaches says he has never been trained in defence. In this IPL he has featured as an “impact player”, a rule that allows him to bat without having to field as well.
He reflects a deeper shift in Indian cricket, too. The sport has long thrived in the country’s wealthier areas, such as Mumbai and Kolkata, but the IPL has helped embed the game in India’s hinterlands. Coaching academies have been set up and are sustained by parents desperate to raise the next IPL star. Mr Sooryavanshi grew up in a small town in Bihar, India’s poorest state. His father sold his farmland to fund daily training in Patna, the state capital, a three-hour drive away.
Mr Sooryavanshi will need to prove himself on the global stage. In February he powered India to victory in the under-19 World Cup. It seems inevitable he will be selected for the senior team, maybe even this summer. But in many ways he is already a national hero. As he was dismantling Mr Starc, the Delhi crowd lapped it up, screaming at every boundary even though it was their own side that was conceding runs. Shirts bearing his name are among the most popular at IPL grounds; clips of his batting trend on Indian social media.
All prodigies are compared to other players, and so it is with Mr Sooryavanshi. In 1989 Sachin Tendulkar made his debut as a 16-year-old. Indians consider him the greatest player ever, who helped their country emerge as a force in global cricket. Now that India is the sport’s established superpower, Mr Sooryavanshi can never match that legacy. But observers reckon he is a once-in-a-generation talent who might become a megastar. He is a virtuoso, right off the bat.
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