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Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) assistant coach James Franklin was left stunned by Vaibhav Sooryavanshi's destructive knock of 97 off just 29 deliveries in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 Eliminator on May 27. Franklin was in awe of what Sooryavanshi could do and how much talent he possesses. He wonders what the youngster could achieve in the future as he backed him to get more mature as his career progresses.
"I don't think anyone's ever seen a talent like this. It's freakish what he's doing at the moment. To think that he's potentially got 25 years left in a career is quite scary. And he's only going to get better. He's only going to get stronger. He's only going to get more mature with how he bats. So it's just devastating at the moment," Franklin said in the post-match press conference.
As skipper Pat Cummins had said, SRH did have plans for Sooryavanshi. However, Franklin admitted that the margin of error is tiny against someone of his calibre. The former New Zealand all-rounder pointed out that SRH tried to go full against but he thwarted the plan.
"There was a very, very small margin where you could bowl to him. And I guess when you're playing on a really good pitch as well, it makes it particularly hard for bowlers to try and execute that tiny margin that you're looking for. I think you probably saw in the first couple of overs of the power play that we were trying to bowl quite full, sort of inside leg stump, trying to get under his swing," Franklin said.
"But then he started to work that out, which is his talent. He's an amazing talent who can then start playing around with that and then start to cause the bowlers to have to go to other places, which tend to then go back into his strength. So, yeah, just another amazing innings from an amazing talent," he added.
Cummins admits defeat vs Sooryavanshi
After the 47-run defeat, skipper Cummins had also that said the margin of error against the 15-year-old is small and SRH bowlers were not left with too many options.
“He played pretty well. [I] just don't feel like you have too many options. Obviously, it's a really good pitch, but the margins are so small. If you miss your yorker by a little bit, he doesn't tend to miss them,” Cummins said in the post-match presentation.
Sooryavanshi will step on the field in Mullanpur again when RR go up against Gujarat Titans (GT) in the Qualifier 2 match on May 29.
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