Rajasthan Royals (RR) suffered an unfortunate loss against Gujarat Titans (GT) in their Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 Qualifier 2 clash on Friday, May 29 at the New PCA Stadium in Mullanpur. The sad part is that RR's teen sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi's astonishing individual campaign came to an end with this loss.
Gutted Vaibhav Sooryavanshi
The Riyan Parag-led side dropped an underwhelming bowling performance while defending 215 against the star-studded batting line-up of GT. After the loss, the 15-year-old was seen emotionally gutted. The young opener was receiving consolation from RR support staff members.
In the first innings, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi carried the entire RR batting lineup, with his superb 96 runs off 47 balls at a strike rate of 204.26, including eight boundaries and seven huge sixes. Riding on Sooryavanshi's astonishing knock and Donovan Ferreira's late flourish of 38 off just 11 balls, RR managed to post 214/6 at the end of the first innings.
Comfortable chase from GT
In response, GT chased the target with ease as their opening duo of Sai Sudharsan and skipper Shubman Gill recorded another epic partnership to dismantle the RR bowling attack. Shubman Gill smashed a brilliant century in just 53 balls, before getting dismissed by Jofra Archer on 104 runs. Washington Sundar also smashed 58 runs off just 32 balls, before getting hit wicket on Brijesh Sharma's bowling.
Rahul Tewatia and Jos Buttler finished the game for GT, with 17 off 9 and 9 off 9 respectively. At the end, GT emerged victorious by seven wickets in a thrilling run-chase.
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi's historic IPL 2026 campaign
The 15-year-old opener finished the IPL 2026 season on a high note, as he gathered 776 runs in just 16 games at an average of 48.50 with a staggering strike rate of 237.31. Vaibhav smashed five half-centuries and one century, with 103 off 37 being his highest score which came against Sunrisers Hyderabad.
In the campaign, he broke Chris Gayle's long-standing record of most sixes (59 sixes in 2012) in a single season by smashing 72 maximums in IPL 2026.