Vaibhav Sooryavanshi is only 15 years old, but the maturity the player has shown is way beyond his age. While the southpaw always had terrific ability to play big shots, he would often lose his wicket while charging early in his innings.
In the past couple of years, Sooryavanshi has shown superb improvement in his intent, which is now reaping rewards. The swashbuckling batter now understands the value of his wicket; he respects the good balls at the start of his innings before going berserk once he gets set.
In a recent interaction with Rajasthan Royals, Sooryavanshi gave another example of his calm and mature mindset. He even revealed how he calmed down a ‘stressed’ Rajasthan Royals head coach, Kumar Sangakkara.
The teenager said that the incident took place during the mid-innings break of Rajasthan Royals’ IPL 2026 game against Lucknow Super Giants at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium, Jaipur, on May 19.
RR’s stand-in captain Yashasvi Jaiswal won the toss and opted to bowl in the game. However, a good batting display from LSG helped the side post 220 for 5. Sooryavanshi revealed that Sangakkara looked stressed as his team was about to start the chase. The batter added that he calmed down his head coach and promised him that he would do the job.
It is worth noting that RR, who are fighting hard for the final IPL 2026 playoff spot, faced LSG after suffering a hat-trick of defeats.
“Actually, we were not doing good in the last three matches. I watched him, he was under lots of pressure. So even today, when the opponents scored 220. I was padding up. His faced looked like he was in a lot of tension and taking a lot of stress. But I was confident that today I will back my game and do well. So I told him that it will be done. It’s not a long score according to the wicket,” he said.
As it turned out, Sooryavanshi lived up to the promise with a sensational 93-run knock off just 38 deliveries. His innings was laced with seven fours and 10 sixes as RR won the game by seven wickets, completing the chase with five balls to spare.