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South Africa's legendary pacer, Dale Steyn, has made a bold prediction about the 15-year-old menacing hard-hitter Vaibhav Sooryavanshi. Steyn has predicted that by the time Sooryavanshi retires, he will achieve far greater things that legendary Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli combined. Steyn's comments came ahead of Sooryavanshi's T20I debut on UK tour (Ireland and England). He also cautioned the Indian team management about the consequences of not handling him well.
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"Sooryavanshi is a different gravy, man! He's better than most international players right now. He is a boy wonder, somebody who is a treasure for Indian cricket," Steyn was quoted as saying by PTI during an SA20 event.
"You think of guys like Sachin, Virat, and this kid is going to explode. He's going to be bigger than both of them put together at the end of his career. So, I would caution how you manage him and look after him because with great responsibility, comes great reward.
"But there's a big threat there that you could lose him at some point if you don't look after him well enough," he added.
Sooryavanshi won a long list of awards despite Rajasthan Royals (RR) not making it to the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 final. He won the orange cap, scoring 776 runs at a strike rate of 237.30, including a century and five fifties.
Bowl like Rabada to get Sooryavanshi out?
As Sooryavanshi gears up to break Tendulkar's record for youngest male player to make international cricket debut, Steyn feels that bowlers need to instill the 'fear factor' in him to have a chance of stopping him. He feels bowling short is the key and recalled how South Africa pacer Kagiso Rabada bowled to him.
"I think (Kagiso) Rabada bowled at him well. You've got to test him upstairs and he's still young, he's only 14-15, and if you can throw a little bit of fear factor into the game, I mean, cricket is a fear factor game.
"… if you go into the game scared, if you're fearing somebody, not for your life, but even just fear bowling to them or fear facing them, fear can make you do silly things. So, the short ball towards him is probably a good option," he noted.
How Sooryavanshi is performing in Sri Lanka
Ahead of the international debut, Sooryavanshi is currently playing in the tri-nation series on Sri Lanka soil. For India A, he has registered scores of 12-ball 14 and 22-ball 44 against Sri Lanka A and Afghanistan A respectively. He will be next in action against Sri Lanka A on June 15.
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