‘At this age, we couldn’t even play gully cricket properly’: Amitabh Bachchan praises 15-year-old Vaibhav Sooryavanshi over stupendous IPL performance

MUMBAI: Fifteen-year-old cricketer Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has been doing wonders with his bat ever since he made his Indian Premier League (IPL) debut in 2025. Representing Rajasthan Royals (RR), Sooryavanshi, who hails from Bihar, has already shattered several records, including veteran Chris Gayle’s long-standing IPL record for the most sixes in a season.

Sixes and fours rain across the stadium whenever he comes out to bat. In the ongoing IPL season, he has delivered one remarkable performance after another. At times when other players in his team struggled to make an impact, he stood tall like a one-man army, scoring runs at an astonishing rate and carrying the team’s hopes on his shoulders. He did not spare even bowlers like Jasprit Bumrah and Mitchell Starc.

No doubt, the fifteen-year-old prodigy has become a hard-hitting run machine, sending cricket fans into a frenzy. In fact, megastar Amitabh Bachchan is also a fan of this young boy.

After RR’s Qualifier 2 match against Gujarat Titans on Friday night, Big B, an avid cricketer followers, posted an appreciation note for Sooryavanshi on his X account. He remarked that at 15, people like him were still struggling to play proper gully cricket, while Sooryavanshi is achieving feats that seem almost unbelievable.

“Sooryavanshi – A remarkable Surya at the age of 15. At this age, we couldn’t even play marbles and gully cricket properly,” Bachchan posted.

T 5756(i) –
Sooryavanshi – १५ साल की उम्र का अद्भुत सूर्या ।
इस उम्र में तो हम बंटों और गुल्ली डंडा भी ठीक से नहीं खेल पा रहे थे !!

— Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) May 29, 2026

Despite Rajasthan Royals missing out on a place in the final after their defeat to Gujarat Titans in Mullanpur, New Chandigarh, Sooryavanshi’s memorable innings will remain etched in the minds of cricket fans for the way he shouldered the responsibility and scored vital runs (96 runs off 47 balls) in a crucial match.

With 776 runs in 16 innings at an average of 48.50 and a strike rate of 237.50, including a century, five fifties and a whopping 72 sixes, Sooryavanshi has been able to provide a mix of consistency and explosiveness unseen in world cricket before.

In the previous match, the eliminator against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), he also scored a sensational 29-ball 97, with his 12 sixes taking his tally past legendary Chris Gayle’s tally of 59 sixes in IPL 2012. Having taken baby steps towards his desire of breaking the West Indies legend’s records, he has also bettered his tally of runs in a single season and ended his playoffs journey with a massive 19 sixes in total.

He also completed his 1,000 IPL runs, becoming the fastest in terms of balls taken, in just 440 balls, outclassing West Indies legend Andre Russell and being the second fastest in terms of innings, having reached the milestone in just 23 innings, with Shaun Marsh (21 innings) being the quickest. (ANI)