Vaibhav Sooryavanshi threatened for a while in the IPL 2026 match between the Rajasthan Royals and the Gujarat Titans at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur. But Mohammed Siraj stopped the 15-year-old in his tracks, and the left-hander had to walk back after scoring 36 runs off 16 balls. This proved to be a body blow for the Royals, who failed to recover, going down by 77 runs in their chase of 230. Just like Pat Cummins, even Matthew Hayden is mighty impressed with the Royals’ opener, but the former Australia batter might just have highlighted some of the biggest flaws in the youngster’s gameplay.
Hayden said that when a team is chasing a target in excess of 220, the need of the hour is to have a batter who can go strike big and go deep, and it isn’t much about players who play cameos of 10-ball 30.
The Gujarat Titans’ batting coach then came to the rescue of the team’s top three – Shubman Gill, Sai Sudharsan and Jos Buttler – saying his side excels at having batters who can play according to the situation and deliver a strike rate of 150 every day of the week.
“Well, tonight was a good example, right, of an exciting young talent in Vaibhav Sooryavanshi. He batted, got 30 runs at a strike rate of 300. But when you’re chasing 220 odd, you need to bat longer and deeper. So the advantage that we have is that we get players, like the top three that you mentioned, who are striking at 150,” Hayden told reporters in the post-match press conference.
“Let me tell you as a batter, that is really hard, and they’re doing it for a long period of time, they’re constantly getting into the back half of the game, not just batting inside the powerplay. They’re going right through with their fitness and their ability to be able to really play Test match-type cricket, and ODI cricket in particular,” he added.
‘Nice challenge’
Speaking of the Gujarat Titans’ top three, Gill has been batting at a strike-rate of 160.41 in IPL 2026, while Buttler and Sudharsan have been striking at 151.96 and 157.70, respectively.
Hayden was candid enough to admit that his side excels in playing games where 160-180 totals are the par score, but he was happy to see how GT changed their approach against an X-factor team like the Royals.
“So, I love the fact that we’re going about constructing in innings. Tonight, where we’re setting a target, which is a different challenge for us, we’ve had a number of totals in that sort of 160 range. Which I would back our batting to get through any day of the week, so it was nice tonight to have that bit of a challenge against an X-factor team like Rajasthan Royals, and to come out on top was really important for us,” said Hayden.
Speaking of the match against Rajasthan, Gill stepped up with the bat, scoring 84 runs off 44 balls, helping Gujarat post 229/6 in 20 overs.
