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Cricket PlayersThe season Vaibhav Sooryavanshi broke IPL batting — and the one challenge that had him stumped
Amid Vaibhav Sooryavanshi's batting insanity, one name stood out - Twelve balls. Two runs. Two wickets.
'RCB is the story of this IPL. But Vaibhav Sooryavanshi is the IPL this season,' Jos Buttler couldn't have summed up IPL 2026 more aptly.
An Orange Cap, an MVP award, the Super Striker title, the most sixes in a season, and the Emerging Player honour, all in one summer. He faced 327 balls across 47 bowlers and scored 776 runs. The strike rate? A barely believable 237.3, with 72 sixes to go with it.
Years later, when IPL 2026 is looked back on, Sooryavanshi will still be remembered for his batting insanity, which came at the age of just 15. Unless, of course, the left-hander goes on to achieve what has been prophesied about him, in which case the season will be remembered as the launchpad for the phenomenon that turned out to be 'Vaibhav Sooryavanshi'. Well, that thought itself is freakish.
While his numbers themselves paint the larger picture of his domination throughout the tournament, where he played the most pivotal role in taking Rajasthan Royals to Qualifier 2, a deeper dissection reflects just how efficient he was against the best bowlers in the world.
Jasprit Bumrah, Josh Hazlewood, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, he cared little for reputations or stature. Nor did he care about what was at stake or the mind games, of which Pat Cummins faced the brunt in the Eliminator.
And that begged the question throughout the tournament itself, how do you stop Sooryavanshi?
"He has a number of world-class bowlers in this tournament going through, as I said on commentary, Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, Plan E, F, and G, and that's a good sign. I don't know that there's any one plan yet that I can put my finger on and say, 'This is definitely what you do against him,'" Ian Bishop had said while responding to a Hindustan Times query earlier this season.
IPL 2026 was a season where bowlers ran out of plans, and Sooryavanshi ran out of patience for none of them. The 15-year-old was not just the best batter in IPL 2026, he was the most ferocious force the tournament has seen in a long time. The numbers against the game's biggest names tell their own story.
Of the 47 bowlers he faced in IPL 2026, he scored at a strike rate above 180 against 37 of them. That includes Cummins, the Australia Test captain, against whom he struck at 316; Hazlewood, one of the best new-ball bowlers in T20 cricket, he took 18 off four balls at a strike rate of 450; Purple Cap winner Kagiso Rabada, against whom he scored 43 off 23 balls; Mohammed Siraj, the tournament's most economical bowler and the winner of the most dot balls award, against whom he plundered 60 off just 29 balls; and Bumrah, arguably the finest T20 bowler alive, against whom he scored 13 off five balls at 260.
Of the total bowlers, there were 17 against whom he faced eight or more deliveries. Though the sample size is small, Sunil Narine and Prasidh Krishna stood out, having bowled eight balls each and restricted Sooryavanshi to a strike rate of 100 or less. He scored a run-a-ball against the pacer and one short of that against the spinner.
But amid the insanity, one name stood out. That man was Mohsin Khan.
Across two encounters, the left-arm seamer from Lucknow Super Giants bowled 12 deliveries at Sooryavanshi. Two runs. Two wickets. A dot-ball percentage of 83.3%. A strike rate of 16.6.
In a season where 180 was routine for the teenager, these numbers feel like they belong to a different sport. In fact, among all 34 bowlers against whom he faced at least four balls, Mohsin is the only one against whom he failed to score a boundary.
The only bowler who figured him out
Their first meeting, at Lucknow's Ekana Stadium, was a clinic in precision. Mohsin went with hard lengths aimed at the body, denying Sooryavanshi the room he thrives on. Subtle variations, deliveries that straightened, others that gripped and darted away late, made stroke-making progressively harder. Five dot balls built the noose. Then, on the sixth, Mohsin angled one towards the leg side. Tempted into a cross-batted heave and finding no timing, Sooryavanshi sliced it towards cover, where Digvesh Rathi ran in to complete the catch.
It was a wicket-maiden, and the first time all season that Sooryavanshi recorded a strike rate below 100, falling for 8 off 11 balls.
Now, Sooryavanshi is a player of vengeance. And no one can tell that story better than Sunrisers Hyderabad pacer Praful Hinge, who found himself at the receiving end of one.
The fast bowler had dismissed him for a duck in Hyderabad. But in the return fixture, Sooryavanshi smashed him for four consecutive sixes in the very first over before going on to score a 36-ball century.
Sooryavanshi doesn't forget. He came back for Hinge. He never quite came back for Mohsin.
The second contest came in Jaipur, a game where Sooryavanshi's 93 off 38 was so good that even Lucknow owner Sanjiv Goenka and head coach Justin Langer found themselves applauding. Mohsin was the only bowler who survived the wrath. His response was to repeat the blueprint without apology.
Early in the powerplay, he bowled four balls aimed at the stumps, angled in from the left-arm angle and kept the batter pinned. One run. Then, returning in the 14th over, he conceded a single off the first ball before ending the duel with a slower delivery that Sooryavanshi could only spoon to the fielder.
Twelve balls. Two runs. Two wickets.
The plan never changed, and it never needed to. In a season of total, breathless, record-breaking insanity, that is perhaps the quietest and most remarkable story of all.
