Vaibhav Sooryavanshi turned Jaipur into his personal launchpad on Saturday, smashing a 37-ball 103 against Sunrisers Hyderabad and adding another outrageous record chapter to a career that is still barely old enough to process.
The 15-year-old left-hander reached his century in just 36 balls, making it the third-fastest hundred in IPL history. He was eventually dismissed leg before by Sakib Hussain when RR’s score was 170/3 in 13.5 overs, after playing an innings that included 5 fours and 12 sixes at a strike rate of 278.37.
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi scripts another IPL record night
This knock from Sooryavanshi came in a high-stakes top-four contest between Rajasthan Royals and Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium, with RR entering the match third on the table with 10 points and SRH fourth with eight. Pat Cummins won the toss and chose to bowl first, expecting SRH’s attack to control the early tempo. Sooryavanshi destroyed that plan almost immediately.
The left-hander’s assault began with a direct response to Praful Hinge, the same bowler who had hurt Rajasthan badly in the reverse fixture. In the previous meeting between the two sides this season, Hinge had taken three wickets in the first over and broken RR’s chase early. In Jaipur, Sooryavanshi flipped that memory brutally. He launched Hinge for four sixes in an over, two over the leg side and two with clean straight hits, giving Rajasthan the kind of powerplay surge that usually belongs to video games.
By the time he reached fifty, he had needed only 15 balls. It was already his third IPL fifty this season in 15 balls or fewer, a number that tells the real story of his impact. He is no longer producing isolated flashes. He is repeatedly changing the speed limit of T20 batting.
The century arrived off 36 balls, one ball slower than his own 35-ball IPL hundred from last season. That older knock had already made him the fastest Indian centurion in IPL history and the youngest men’s T20 centurion. Saturday’s innings now gives him two IPL hundreds before most players his age would even enter senior cricket conversations.
With a 36-ball ton tonight, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi became the only player in IPL history to score two centuries in under 40 deliveries (Cricviz). Notably, ESPNCricinfo’s data reveals that so far 797 batters have batted in the tournament. So that makes him the first in 797 to acheive the feat.
There was another major milestone tucked inside the carnage. During the innings, Sooryavanshi became the youngest player to cross 1000 runs in T20 cricket. He reached the mark at 15 years and 29 days, with the milestone coming in only 26 innings and at a strike rate above 200. That combination is absurd. Plenty of young batters score early. Very few score this fast, this often, against this level of bowling.
SRH had their chances. Aniket Verma put down a tough chance in the deep early in the innings, and the miss grew heavier with every six that followed. Cummins did manage one quiet over, but Rajasthan had already crossed 50 inside four overs and were 92/1 after seven. Sooryavanshi then kept stretching the innings beyond SRH’s control, even bringing out a switch-hit four to show that the innings was not built only on raw power.
His dismissal came immediately after the hundred, trying a reverse lap against Sakib Hussain. By then, the damage was complete. RR were 170/3 with more than six overs still left, and Sooryavanshi had already pushed the match into a zone where SRH needed something extraordinary to recover.
For Rajasthan, the timing mattered as much as the numbers. Their bowling had carried them in the previous game, where they defended 160 against Lucknow Super Giants. Their batting had been quieter. Against SRH, on their return to Jaipur, Sooryavanshi restored the intimidation factor in one brutal spell.
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi is no longer a novelty story about age. He is becoming a statistical outlier in real time. At 15, he already owns two of the fastest IPL hundreds, multiple 15-ball fifties, and is the youngest to reach the 1000-run milestone in T20 cricket.
