Both Sanju Samson and R Ashwin used to play together for Rajasthan Royals during the IPL and are now equally impressed by a youngster, the 14-year old Vaibhav Suryavanshi, who had grabbed the limelight during IPL 2025 due to his brilliant batting prowess and the maturity, which was much beyond his age. During an interaction on Ashwin’s Kutti stories podcast on YouTube, both the players talk about Suryavanshi’s ability to hit the ball with such force in some of the world’s best bowlers’ overs.
A lot of players at that age are still attending academies and are learning more about the game, but Suryavanshi might have given that process a miss as he announced his arrival in one of the richest franchises’ T20 league in style.
“Yeah, I saw him hit one for a six. I was thinking that the little guy got lucky, but it kept on going. The quality of the shots also really shocked me,” Samson was quoted as saying on Ashwin’s YouTube channel Kutti stories.
“It’s not so much about his hitting. I bowled one ball from around the stumps. He hit that to the covers, and then I bowled it slow to see if he would go big. But he just waited for the ball and just screamed towards mid-on for a single. I was thinking, what the hell, where did this kid come from, and he’s 14 years old. I made my debut 18 years ago in the IPL,” he concluded.