Jaipur, May 20 (IANS) Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) head coach Justin Langer has heaped praise on Rajasthan Royals batting prodigy Vaibhav Sooryavanshi after the 15-year-old’s 93-run knock helped his side chase down a mammoth total of 221 runs in just 19.1 overs to boost their qualification chances.
Langer described the teenager’s batting as “breathtaking” and admitted it was a privilege to watch him bat.
“My gosh, he’s so young. He’s a brilliant, brilliant player and it’s a real privilege to watch him bat, actually,” Langer said in the post-match press conference.
“We’ve seen it all season. He’s the leading run scorer. In all my time, I’ve seen some amazing players in 35 years of cricket. To see a young man bat like that, not just tonight, but throughout the series, is breathtaking,” he added.
Sooryavanshi’s innings was laced with seven fours and ten sixes, and according to Langer, the Indian player is going to get much better with experience, as he is already shocking the big bowlers with his shots.
“I think the last game, Mitchell Starc, who’s one of the all-time great white ball bowlers, he’s bowling, and look at the expression on his face,” Langer recalled. “And Nortje, who’s a world-class international bowler, and Sooryavanshi is hitting him. And the expression on their face is such that, ‘what is happening here?’ The scary thing going forward is, if the expressions on the face of Mitch Starc and Nortje and every bowler tell a story now, what about when he learns how to bat?”
Sooryavanshi brought up his fifty in just 23 balls and later became the first Indian batter in IPL history to hit 50 sixes in a single season. He was eventually dismissed in the 14th over, but not before taking the game away from LSG and putting RR on the brink of victory.
After Sooryvanshi’s dismissal, Dhruv Jurel, who scored his fifth fifty of the season, and Donovan Ferreira added the finishing touches to help RR over the finish line and keep them firmly in the IPL 2026 playoffs race.
–IANS
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