Trust his SIX, not his X: Fake accounts try to bask in Vaibhav Sooryavanshi's glory
The fake accounts impersonating RR opener Vaibhav Sooryavanshi have fooled many, including famous people like Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev and IPL founder Lalit Modi.
Swashbuckling Rajasthan Royals (RR) opener Vaibhav Sooryavanshi created history in the 2026 IPL edition by breaking West Indian great Chris Gayle’s 14-year record of the most sixes in a single season. Gayle had scored 59 sixes in 2012. And on May 27, the 15-year-old batting prodigy hit an astounding 12 sixes, bringing his tally for the season to 65 so far.
As his popularity soars, some on social media are pretending to be the official accounts of Sooryavanshi to gain engagement. We came across two such X accounts: @VaibhavSV12 and @Vaibhavsooryava.
These accounts have fooled many, including famous people like Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev and IPL founder Lalit Modi. In fact, news outlets like The New Indian Express also ended up tagging these fake accounts in their posts.
India Today Fact Check reached out to Vaibhav’s father, Sanjiv Sooryavanshi, who told us that the cricketer does not have any social media accounts, apart from the Instagram account @vaibhav_sooryavanshi09.
HOW THESE ACCOUNTS DECEIVED PEOPLE?
The accounts @VaibhavSV12 and @Vaibhavsooryava have just mentioned “professional cricketer” in their bios, and the X accounts of RR and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
They constantly repost congratulatory posts by national and international cricketers and talk in the first person, as if to imply Vaibhav Sooryavanshi is personally writing these posts.
X policy dictates that people are not allowed to deceive by impersonating other individuals, groups, or organisations. At the time of writing this story, these two accounts had already garnered 28.5K and 66K followers. Interestingly, these accounts have changed their username six and seven times, respectively.
OLDER AVATARS
While both these accounts created last year have deleted their older posts, we were still able to find traces of their older avatars. Using the advanced search feature of X, we found a screenshot seemingly showing an older version of the bio of the account @VaibhavSV12. Here, the birth year was mentioned as 1998. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi was born in 2011.
Similarly, another X user pointed out that this account was previously called @josd92banter. When we searched for the account @josd92banter on X, we found a reply addressed to the account @VaibhavSV12.
This isn’t the first time a social media account has pretended to be the prodigal cricketer from Bihar’s Samastipur. In April 2025, some news outlets had reported about social media accounts impersonating him.
Swashbuckling Rajasthan Royals (RR) opener Vaibhav Sooryavanshi created history in the 2026 IPL edition by breaking West Indian great Chris Gayle’s 14-year record of the most sixes in a single season. Gayle had scored 59 sixes in 2012. And on May 27, the 15-year-old batting prodigy hit an astounding 12 sixes, bringing his tally for the season to 65 so far.
As his popularity soars, some on social media are pretending to be the official accounts of Sooryavanshi to gain engagement. We came across two such X accounts: @VaibhavSV12 and @Vaibhavsooryava.
These accounts have fooled many, including famous people like Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev and IPL founder Lalit Modi. In fact, news outlets like The New Indian Express also ended up tagging these fake accounts in their posts.
India Today Fact Check reached out to Vaibhav’s father, Sanjiv Sooryavanshi, who told us that the cricketer does not have any social media accounts, apart from the Instagram account @vaibhav_sooryavanshi09.
HOW THESE ACCOUNTS DECEIVED PEOPLE?
The accounts @VaibhavSV12 and @Vaibhavsooryava have just mentioned “professional cricketer” in their bios, and the X accounts of RR and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
They constantly repost congratulatory posts by national and international cricketers and talk in the first person, as if to imply Vaibhav Sooryavanshi is personally writing these posts.
X policy dictates that people are not allowed to deceive by impersonating other individuals, groups, or organisations. At the time of writing this story, these two accounts had already garnered 28.5K and 66K followers. Interestingly, these accounts have changed their username six and seven times, respectively.
OLDER AVATARS
While both these accounts created last year have deleted their older posts, we were still able to find traces of their older avatars. Using the advanced search feature of X, we found a screenshot seemingly showing an older version of the bio of the account @VaibhavSV12. Here, the birth year was mentioned as 1998. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi was born in 2011.
Similarly, another X user pointed out that this account was previously called @josd92banter. When we searched for the account @josd92banter on X, we found a reply addressed to the account @VaibhavSV12.
This isn’t the first time a social media account has pretended to be the prodigal cricketer from Bihar’s Samastipur. In April 2025, some news outlets had reported about social media accounts impersonating him.
