Protect Vaibhav Sooryavanshi from evil eye: Ashwin sends message to RR star's parents

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi’s breathtaking IPL 2026 Eliminator knock against Sunrisers Hyderabad has now earned praise from Ravichandran Ashwin, with the former India spinner left stunned by the Rajasthan Royals teenager’s mental maturity at just 15 years of age. Ashwin even joked that Sooryavanshi’s parents should protect the youngster from the “evil eye” after his remarkable rise this season.

Speaking on his YouTube channel after Rajasthan Royals’ win over SRH, Ashwin said the teenager’s ability to improve and adapt within a single IPL season was what impressed him the most.

SRH vs RR: HIGHLIGHTS | SCORECARD

“I don't wanna play 15 years old boy card but tell me how many matches did he play at age of 15 to get this level of mental maturity?” Ashwin said.

“If you remember his uppercut over third man for six, the same ball at the start of the season he was trying to play straight and it was getting top edged. Inside a season he made such changes at age of just 15.”

Ashwin then went on to shower even bigger praise on the RR prodigy.

“He is not a normal player. His mom and dad need to do whatever it takes to remove bad evil eye from him,” Ashwin added.

“This boy in the post-match interview was saying that hundred will come later, I tried to win the match for my team tonight. The way he bats, he doesn’t care about hundreds because he knows he will get them here and there.”

Ashwin also highlighted how Sooryavanshi answered questions surrounding pressure handling during the playoffs.

“There was a question on him, how he was going to play under pressure, and he was incredible,” Ashwin said.

HOW SOORYAVANSHI DISMANTLED SRH BOWLERS

SRH entered the Eliminator with one of the better bowling attacks of IPL 2026, but Vaibhav Sooryavanshi turned the night into a boundary-hitting exhibition in Mullanpur.

Pat Cummins kept rotating his bowlers and constantly adjusted the field as the innings slipped away. Pace off, hard lengths, yorkers into the blockhole and short balls into the body were all tried against the 15-year-old. Nothing really slowed him down for long.

Sooryavanshi raced to 50 in just 16 balls and never allowed SRH to settle after that. He eventually smashed 97 off only 29 deliveries, striking at 334.48 with 12 sixes and five fours, while leaving the fastest century in IPL history only three runs away.

The scary part for SRH was how quickly he adapted through the innings. Early on, he targeted anything full straight down the ground. When the bowlers dragged the length shorter, he started accessing the square boundaries with upper-cuts and pulls. Anything drifting onto the pads disappeared over backward square leg.

Cummins himself went for four sixes against the teenager, while even SRH’s change-ups and defensive fields failed to stop the momentum once Vaibhav got through the first few overs.

Sooryavanshi eventually fell just three runs short of what would have been the fastest century in IPL history, but his knock had already powered Rajasthan Royals to a massive total of 243 for 8.

By the time he finally got out, Rajasthan Royals had already broken the game open and SRH were left chasing shadows in a knockout match that quickly slipped beyond control.

The innings also further strengthened conversations around his future with the Indian team. The teenager has now scored 680 runs this season at an average of 45.33 and a staggering strike rate of 242.86, numbers rarely seen even among established T20 stars.

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