SOURCE :- SIASAT NEWS
Mullanpur: Vaibhav Sooryanshi left the cricketing world in awe again as the 15-year-old toyed with the likes of Pat Cummins on the way to a six-laden 97 off 29 balls before Rajasthan Royals slipped to 243 for eight against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL Eliminator here on Wednesday.
The 15-year-old, who keeps pushing his boundaries at such a young age, went on a six-hitting spree (12 in total) against Cummins and Co. on a true surface. The Australian captain and his bowling mates tried everything against Sooryavanshi, but the free-flowing batter responded by sending ball after ball into the stands.
Not so long ago, he had told Kevin Pietersen about his outrageous ambition of scoring a 200 in a T20 game. With the way he was operating in Mullanpur, a double hundred was very much on the cards.
Eventually, he narrowly missed out on breaking the fastest IPL hundred record of Chris Gayle (30 balls) by getting caught at third man off Praful Hinge in the eighth over. For the youngest IPL centurion, another record was there for the taking but he missed out by just one hit.
The slow walk back to the pavilion displayed his dejection, even though he was applauded by everyone in the stadium, including the opposition.
It was a good batting surface but the ball striking from Sooryavanshi was phenomenal. Anything full was smoked back over the bowler’s head, the predictable short ball was slashed over third man and anything on his pads was picked up over fine leg. The fast hands were working wonders.
Cummins, who was hammered for four sixes by Sooryavanshi, had run out of answers and so did others. The Australian is among the wiliest operators on the field but discussions with the leadership group after every Sooryavanshi six became a routine.
While hitting sixes at will, the left-hander did break Gayle’s record (59 sixes) for most sixes in a season. He has cleared the fence a staggering 65 times this season.
Just put Sooryavanshi’s special effort in perspective, he got to his half century off 16 balls and half of those deliveries went over the ropes.
His opening partner Yashasvi Jaiswal was a mere spectator at the other end and ended with contrasting run-a-ball 29.
Dhruv Jurel made a sublime 50 off 21 balls, his sixth half century of the season, but the Royals lost their way in the death overs. They looked unstoppable at 180 for two in 13 overs but SRH picked up timely wickets to cut the scoring rate.
The last five overs belonged to SRH, who took five wickets for 36 runs in that phase.
Still, Cummins ended with forgettable figures of 64 runs in four overs with no wickets. Sakib Hussain leaked 49 runs in three overs while Hinge got three wickets but conceded 54 runs in his 24 balls. Eshan Malinga gave 10 runs per over.
Wrist spinner Shivang Kumar was impressive against and got the wicket of Jaiswal.
SOURCE : SIASAT
