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Cricket Players‘Just another batter’: Kagiso Rabada gives Vaibhav Sooryavanshi his due but refuses to throw in the towel
Kagiso Rabada has been sensational in the powerplay this IPL, taking wicket after wicket – but he met his match over the weekend against Vaibhav Sooryavanshi.
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has set the world of cricket on fire in his brief spell at the highest level of the game – a couple of IPL centuries, the who’s who of the bowling world taken down with absolute disdain, and already some major silverware won thanks to a century in this year’s U19 World Cup final.
Enough and more has been said about Sooryavanshi’s bat swing, his immense power, and his young-blooded insistence to go after the best in the world. Jasprit Bumrah, Josh Hazlewood, and most recently Kagiso Rabada – these are all players, cricket hall of fame calibre talents, that Sooryavanshi has sized up and sent sailing into the stands.
After a meeting with Sooryavanshi in Jaipur this weekend, South African fast-man Rabada reflected on what makes Sooryavanshi such a special talent, having witnessed it up front and personal, and being slogged away for a couple of sixes despite being in some of the best T20 bowling form of his life.
“He has got really fast hands, and he is fearless at the moment. There is not an ounce of fear in his body, and that’s how you it normally is when you are young,” said Rabada to PTI. “It really fascinates me. It is great to see in the game of cricket, in the IPL, that the game is well and truly alive.”
‘Who else is going to make headlines?’
While it might fascinate Rabada to watch such batting from a player still 15 years of age, a different adjective might be used by some of his fast-bowling brethren, not least his Gujarat Titans teammate Mohammed Siraj. Siraj got the better of Sooryavanshi in Jaipur, removing him for 36(16), and roared in celebration.
Siraj was not the first fast bowler to really enjoy getting the better of Sooryavanshi, with New Zealander Kyle Jamieson getting right into the teenager’s grill after bowling him with a fiery yorker in the match prior.
“Who else is going to come in and make headlines of that nature? What I think is that he is just another batter, and I try to get the better of him,” Rabada said regarding facing Sooryavanshi – and as a fiery competitor himself with some heated battles against the likes of David Warner and Virat Kohli, Rabada certainly knows that some wickets have more value than others.
“It’s a little bit of flair, and X-factor player, someone drawing eyes to the game. Fast hands and no fear, that’s one hell of a combination,” concluded the Protean, who himself in enjoying his best IPL season since a Purple Cap winning effort in 2020 – when Sooryavanshi was still just 9 years old.
