Wow! At this stage, what more can you even say about Vaibhav Sooryavanshi? The kid is cut from a different cloth. He has thrown the law of averages out the window. Sure, he was dismissed for a duck against the Lucknow Super Giants, but despite that rare blip, look at his other scores – 52, 31, 39, 78, 46, 103 and 43 – unreal consistency. It is no surprise he has eclipsed the likes of KL Rahul, Abhishek Sharma and even the great Virat Kohli to become the first batter to breach the 400-run mark this IPL. And who knows, at the rate he is going, Sooryavanshi might end the season as the youngest ever to win the IPL Orange Cap.
In the short time he’s spent in top-flight cricket, Sooryavanshi has been compared to many legends – Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara, Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh. But while it’s still early days, former India spinner Murali Kartik feels there’s something Sooryavanshi is even better at than Lara. The West Indies legend is considered one of the finest batters to have played the game. Even today, the debate over who was the better batter – Lara or Tendulkar – divides opinion. But if Sooryavanshi is truly that special, does he have the advantage over Lara?
Also Read: What are the chances of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi winning his first IPL Orange Cap, pipping Kohli, Abhishek and others?
“Brian Lara would have been pleased had he had Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s power-hitting. He was a genius, but his backlift was slightly different. His 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,” Kartik said on the Cricbuzz post-match show.
Sooryavanshi similar to Sehwag
Then again, Kartik points to a similarity between Sooryavanshi and Sehwag. When Sehwag burst onto the scene, the one thing that stood out was his fearlessness and refusal to be overawed by a bowler’s stature. Whether it was Chaminda Vaas, Brett Lee, Shoaib Akhtar, Saqlain Mushtaq or Muttiah Muralitharan, Sehwag would take them all on. Kartik sees similar traits in Sooryavanshi.
“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,” he said.