By Prakash Nair 
Jaipur, May 20: When a 15-year-old walks out to chase 221 and makes it look like a club game in a dusty maidan, you stop whatever you are doing and just watch.
That is exactly what happened at Sawai Mansingh Stadium on Wednesday night. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, a boy who should probably still be stressing about board exams, picked up his bat and took apart one of the IPL’s better bowling attacks like it personally offended him. 93 runs. 38 balls. Ten sixes. Rajasthan Royals won by seven wickets, and by the end of it, some of India’s greatest cricketers were on television struggling to find the right words.
Anil Kumble, the man who took 619 Test wickets, who has seen more cricket than most of us ever will, finally just said it plainly: “I am running out of my own vocabulary. This kid is very special.”
When that is your review from Anil Kumble, you are doing something right.
The Night Lucknow Never Saw Coming
Before we get to Sooryavanshi, credit where it is due. Lucknow Super Giants batted well. Josh Inglis and Mitchell Marsh opened up and tore into the RR bowlers from the very first over, racing to 83 without losing a wicket inside the powerplay. Marsh eventually made 96, Rishabh Pant chipped in, and LSG finished at 220/5. A total that, on most nights, wins you the game.
This was not most nights.
Yashasvi Jaiswal came out aggressive, smashed three boundaries off Akash Singh in a single over, hit Mohsin Khan for a six, and set the table nicely with a quick 43. The opening stand was worth 75. RR were in the game.
Then Sooryavanshi decided it was his turn.
He did not go ballistic from ball one, which actually makes the whole thing more impressive. He took his time early on, felt the conditions, watched the bowlers, and batted at a strike rate under 100 through his first ten deliveries. Completely calm. And then he just, well, exploded. By the time he was dismissed for 93, the match was already over in everything but the official result. Ten sixes. Seven fours. A strike rate that calculators struggle with.
RR knocked off the target with seven wickets in hand and barely broke a sweat.
Six Sixes From a Record That Has Stood Since 2012
Here is the thing that has everyone talking right now.
Chris Gayle, the big West Indian left-hander, hit 59 sixes in the 2012 IPL season. That record has been sitting there for fourteen years. Several great players have tried to get near it and fallen short. Andre Russell got to 52 in 2019. Gayle himself hit 51 in 2013. Nobody has come close since.
Sooryavanshi currently has 53 sixes this season. He needs just six more to break it.
Rajasthan have at least one league game left against Mumbai Indians. Win that, and they are in the playoffs, which means three or four more matches. The opportunities are there. The only question is whether he can keep doing what he has been doing all season.
Kumble does not think it is even a question. “He has already hit 53 sixes this IPL season. Chris Gayle holds the record for most sixes in a season with 59. I can see Vaibhav Sooryavanshi breaking Gayle’s record and making history,” he said on Star Sports.
And just to put the overall tally in perspective, Sooryavanshi is already the second highest six-hitter in a single IPL season ever. At 15 years old. In what is essentially his first serious run in the competition.
One Shot in Particular
Kumble, being the cricket brain that he is, zeroed in on one specific thing while watching Sooryavanshi bat Wednesday night.
Against leg-spinner Digvesh Rathi, the teenager hit a six over the cover region. Fine, unusual but possible. Then he did it again. Then again. Over and over, through one of the most difficult hitting zones in cricket, off a bowler turning the ball away from him.
That shot should not come naturally to a left-hander against leg-spin. Most batters, even experienced international players, would work the ball through the on-side or try to hit over long-on. Sooryavanshi was clearing the cover boundary repeatedly and making it look like the most normal thing in the world.
“Very few batters can hit sixes over cover with such ease. But Sooryavanshi did it multiple times against Digvesh Rathi,” Kumble said. His tone was not that of someone complimenting a nice stroke. It was the voice of a man trying to process something he had not quite seen before.
Irfan Pathan, watching from the studio, made a different observation that is worth sitting with. He pointed out that what makes Sooryavanshi genuinely dangerous is not just the power but the reading of a game situation. He started slow. Measured himself in. Let Jaiswal do the early work. And then when the time was right, he shifted into a gear that opposition bowlers had no answer for.
“It is very difficult to stop him,” Pathan said simply.
The Gayle Comparison, and Why Former Bowlers Are Actually Scared
Irfan Pathan played international cricket for years. He knows what it feels like to run in against a batter who can genuinely hurt you, where every delivery carries the very real possibility of going into the stands regardless of what you try.
He said Sooryavanshi is starting to give him that same feeling that Chris Gayle gave bowlers in his prime.
“As bowlers, we were always scared of facing Chris Gayle. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi is creating that same fear, and Gayle’s record is definitely in danger,” Pathan said on JioStar.
That is a big thing to say. Gayle was terrifying not just because of the numbers but because of what he did to a bowler’s mind before a single ball was bowled. You would think about him in the team meeting. You would lose sleep the night before. You would over-think your plans. And he would punish you for all of it.
Pathan is saying a teenager from Bihar is now making people feel that same way.
Sanjay Bangar, also part of the broadcast, gave up trying to analyse it altogether. “Words are not sufficient. They can’t do justice to the kind of ability this young boy possesses. Some of those shots were extraordinary,” he said.
At some point the analysis breaks down and you are just watching something special. Bangar got there quicker than most.
The Part That Actually Surprises People Most
You know what is genuinely strange about all of this? It is not the sixes or the strike rate or the records.
It is how the kid talks about it after.
After Wednesday’s match, with everyone around him losing their minds over what he had just done, Sooryavanshi reportedly said: “This is the start of my journey. If my journey is long enough, I will create a few of these records.”
Read that again. A 15-year-old who has just torn apart an IPL attack in a pressure chase, who is six sixes away from breaking a record that has stood for fourteen years, is talking about this as just the beginning. No chest-thumping. No drama. Just a quiet, settled confidence that he has a long road ahead and this is only the first few steps.
Kumble noticed it and could not stop talking about it. “Every time he speaks, he sounds mature beyond his years. That is crucial at this age, especially with all the attention and praise coming his way,” he said.
Most 15-year-olds would be posting reels about it. This one is thinking about the next decade.
What Rajasthan Actually Need Right Now
Strip away the individual story for a moment, and Rajasthan Royals are in a genuine fight to stay alive in this tournament.
The win over LSG pushed them to fourth on the table, just ahead of Punjab Kings. Their final league game is against Mumbai Indians, and they need that result to go their way. A loss, and depending on other results, their season could be over before Sooryavanshi gets another chance to go after Gayle’s record.
So the stakes are real. He is not batting in dead rubbers with nothing to lose. Every time he walks out for Rajasthan from here, the match means something, and that pressure apparently suits him just fine.
For now, the record is at 59. Sooryavanshi is at 53. The season is not over yet, and a teenager who has already done things nobody in IPL history has managed is still very much in the building.
Six sixes. That is the gap between a 15-year-old from Bihar and a record that the greatest six-hitter in IPL history set fourteen years ago.
Honestly? Back the kid.
Stay ahead with Hindustan Herald — bringing you trusted news, sharp analysis, and stories that matter across Politics, Business, Technology, Sports, Entertainment, Lifestyle, and more.
Connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, YouTube, and join our Telegram community @hindustanherald for real-time updates.
Sports reporter covering cricket, football, and Olympic disciplines, with on-ground event experience.
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
