Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has been the defining force of IPL 2026. At just 15, the Rajasthan Royals opener has ripped apart bowling attacks across the tournament, smashing 568 runs at a staggering strike rate of 232 while emerging as a serious Orange Cap contender. That tally includes a brutal 36-ball century in Jaipur last month — the third-fastest hundred in IPL history — against Sunrisers Hyderabad, the same side Rajasthan will face again in Wednesday’s Eliminator in New Chandigarh. And that innings still lingers heavily in Pat Cummins’ mind.
Until the Jaipur game, the Sunrisers were the only team to have somewhat contained the teenage phenomenon. In the reverse fixture in Hyderabad earlier in the season, Praful Hinge had dismissed Sooryavanshi for a duck in the opening over. But when the two teams met again in Jaipur, the left-hander arrived in full revenge mode. He tore into Hinge immediately, smashing four sixes in the opening over itself.
Sunrisers did manage to create an opportunity later, but Sooryavanshi was dropped on 32, and the Royals batter made them suffer for it. He stormed to a 15-ball fifty before converting it into a breathtaking 36-ball hundred.
The innings clearly left scars within the SRH camp.
Speaking to JioStar ahead of the Eliminator, Cummins admitted Sooryavanshi has forced Sunrisers into deeper tactical planning, even beyond their primary bowling strategy.
“It’s always a balance of, as a bowler, understanding what you do well and how you’re going to bowl to your strengths,” Cummins said. “But when there are probably one or two players in every lineup who can take the game away from the opposition, you do spend a little bit longer working on a Plan B or Plan C. So, yeah, we’ll plan for him.”
Despite the carnage in Jaipur, Cummins remains confident SRH can neutralise the Sooryavanshi threat this time around.
“Even though he got a hundred against us last time, I thought there were times when we actually bowled quite well to him and kept him quiet. At other times, he got away from us. So, we’ll learn from that,” he added.
Interestingly, despite Sooryavanshi’s century, Sunrisers still won that Jaipur clash, chasing down 229 in just 18.3 overs thanks to attacking half-centuries from Abhishek Sharma and Ishan Kishan.
SRH, in fact, completed a league-stage double over Rajasthan this season.
The winner of Wednesday’s Eliminator will face Gujarat Titans in Qualifier 2 at the same venue on Friday after Gujarat’s defeat to defending champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru in Qualifier 1.
