Kamal Ghorui
Something strange happened in Jaipur on Saturday. A 15-year-old smashed 12 sixes in 36 balls while Pat Cummins, the captain of the opposing team and one of cricket’s most respected bowlers, sat there afterwards calling him his new favourite player. Not in a patronizing, “cute kid” way. Genuinely. Like Cummins had just watched something he’d never quite seen before.That’s where we are with Vaibhav Sooryavanshi right now. The IPL 2026 season isn’t even at its halfway point, and he’s already shifted the conversation so much that grown men who’ve played Test cricket for a living are in awe.Cummins led Sunrisers Hyderabad to victory in his return from injury, but the takeaway from that match wasn’t about his bowling or his captaincy. It was about getting smacked on his opening ball for six over mid-wicket. Then, when it was all done, Cummins called Sooryavanshi his “new favourite player,” saying “He hits the ball so hard, it’s great to watch” and noting that “You’ve got to be right on the money as a bowler because if you’re not, it’s going a long way”.Here’s what actually happened that day: Sooryavanshi hit five sixes in a row, smashing four consecutive maximums off the last four deliveries of the first over from Praful Hinge, then got the strike on the last ball of the second over and sent Cummins over the ropes as well. By the time he finished, he’d hit a 36-ball century, the third-fastest in IPL history.The thing that gets lost in all the record-chasing is how casually he does this. There’s no visible weight to what he’s doing. No apparent realization that he’s rewriting history. Before the match, Sooryavanshi had written ‘100’ on the team bus window, and after delivering exactly that, celebrated with a heart gesture as his eyes brimmed with tears—which somehow felt more honest than any post-match interview.Other players have noticed too. Ravichandran Ashwin praised the prodigy, saying “He can climb up the leaderboard, he can hit the first ball for 6, he can hit all bowling types & now he can reverse sweep as well. Vaibhav’s exceptional talent is on display, but don’t discount his game awareness”.But here’s what actually matters. Cummins praised him. Not as an Indian prospect, not as a young talent to watch. As his favourite player. That’s the global breakout. Not the centuries. Not even the sixes. It’s when the opposition captain walks off the field talking about how much fun it was to watch you bat.
