At this point, it’s hard to find new superlatives for Vaibhav Sooryavanshi. The youngster has looked like someone who has simply opted out of the usual rhythm of inconsistency that even the best batters go through. Yes, there was that one uncommon blemish when he was dismissed for a duck against the Lucknow Super Giants, but it barely interrupts what has been an astonishing run of form. Beyond that rare slip, his numbers read like a statement of intent—52, 31, 39, 78, 46, 103 and 43—proof of a batter who keeps finding ways to contribute, match after match. It’s no surprise, then, that he has overtaken the likes of KL Rahul, Abhishek Sharma and even Virat Kohli to become the first player in this IPL to cross the 400-run mark. With the way he’s going, it also raises a tantalising possibility: Sooryavanshi could finish the season as the youngest ever to lift the Orange Cap.
In the brief window he has been in top-level cricket, Sooryavanshi has already drawn comparisons with some of the sport’s biggest names. Conversations around him have repeatedly mentioned Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara, Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh. While it’s still early to place him in the same bracket as those legends, former India spinner Murali Kartik believes there may be an edge in one particular area—suggesting that, if anything, Sooryavanshi might be even more effective than Lara in a way that matters. Lara, after all, is widely viewed as one of the finest batters the game has seen, and the long-standing debate about who was the better batsman—Lara or Tendulkar—has never really gone away. Kartik’s point, though, was sharper: if Sooryavanshi’s talent is truly special, could he even have the advantage over Lara?
Kartik’s answer leaned heavily on how the power is created. “Brian Lara would have been pleased had he had Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s power-hitting,” Kartik said on the Cricbuzz post-match show. “Lara was a genius, but his backlift was slightly different. It was high as well, but when Sooryavanshi brings the bat down, he generates a lot of power. His head is also so still. Most of his shots are not free-flowing or flourishing. He just packs a punch.”
There’s another comparison Kartik believes is worth noting as well—this time, the link is to Virender Sehwag. Kartik argues that fearlessness is one of the most visible traits in Sooryavanshi’s batting, in the same way it was Sehwag’s defining feature when the explosive opener first burst onto the scene. Sehwag’s arrival changed the tempo of games: he refused to be intimidated by the reputation of bowlers, stepping up to the likes of Chaminda Vaas, Brett Lee, Shoaib Akhtar, Saqlain Mushtaq and Muttiah Muralitharan without hesitation. In Kartik’s view, Sooryavanshi carries a similar inner confidence.
“The most important thing is that he’s young. Hand-eye coordination is amazing. In terms of fearlessness, he is a lot like Viru [Sehwag]. He was the same. The bigger the bowler, the more Sehwag wanted to hit him into space. This kid is not telling us, but from inside he must go like Hazlewood, Bumrah, Sunil Narine, I will smash them all,” Kartik said.
