Vaibhav Sooryavanshi etched his name – and underlined it for full emphasis – on a big, knockout night with a scarcely-believable 29-ball 97. It enabled Rajasthan Royals to post 243/8 – the second-highest total in IPL playoffs history. Jofra Archer’s spell in the Powerplay that followed threw SRH off course in the chase. Though they pushed hard to play catch up, it wasn’t enough and they fell well short.
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi the prodigy
You’d think there’s only so much a 15-year-old batter in a league of men can truly achieve. But Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has binned such conventions and rewritten batting rules, bending IPL 2026 to his six-hitting will. The cold facts of this night in numbers, first: on the second ball of the fourth over, Sooryavanshi hit his sixth six of the innings – incredible by itself, that also coolly took his season’s tally to 60 sixes – breaking Chris Gayle’s record (of 59 sixes) from 2012. On the last ball of the eighth over, he could’ve got to the fastest IPL 100, but found the fielder and fell for 97 off 29.
Now to unpack the first 45 minutes of this Eliminator: Pat Cummins spent a lot of the Powerplay moving around his boundary riders. They were sometimes unconventionally straight, sometimes both manned the square leg fence and once, one was stationed at deep extra cover. None of that made a difference. Cummins also front-loaded his best bowling options – he bowled, Eshan Malinga bowled, Sakib Hussain bowled, all in the Powerplay. That didn’t matter either. In the third over, Sooryavanshi hit the SRH captain for three sixes. In the fourth, Sakib copped the same number of sixes, as Sooryavanshi got to a 16-ball 54 – with 48 of that coming in fours and sixes.
Powerplay ended, Cummins put five fielders to the deep but Sooryavanshi continued to push the limits of what he can achieve with a bat in hand. He saw through Sakib’s change of pace, and then tonked Praful Hinge for a four and three sixes in the eighth over. The 15-year-old was soon on the cusp of IPL history – just one six away from getting to the fastest IPL century. That script however suffered an anticlimactic ending as he hit one to third man in the same over, falling for 29-ball 97 – easily one of the all-time great IPL playoffs knocks.
Even Sooryavanshi’s exit did not bring SRH enough of a respite. Yashasvi Jaiswal did not come close to matching his opening partner, but Dhruv Jurel took that challenge on. He went after Shivang Kumar and sullied any plans that Cummins had of a breakthrough by bringing himself back on. Jurel scooped, pulled and drove the SRH captain in a 17-run over before taking a couple of boundaries off Eshan Malinga. His half-century came off 20 balls, but he fell off the 21st. Riyan Parag got runs off Sakib in the 15th over but RR’s regression followed.
RR fell flat in the death overs, getting just 36 runs and losing five wickets. The turnaround that Cummins was looking for came right at the end. He and his bowlers took and kept RR down to under 250 and his team still in with a chance on what had been an absolute batting belter of a surface.
Jofra Archer strikes yet again
Jofra Archer became RR’s ticket to early dominance with the ball. He bounced out Abhishek Sharma in the first over, but Ishan Kishan arrived with murderous intent. Archer bowled one in his slot that Kishan flicked away over square leg. Travis Head hit Nandre Burger for a low six and a four as SRH got to 35/1 in just two overs. Archer’s next over began with similar treatment as Kishan cut one behind point and then hit two sixes in the next three balls. Already 16 runs had already come off the over but Kishan was greedy for more and ended up miscuing another big hit to Donovan Ferreira at cover.
This was the risk SRH ran – of slipping into the pit of going too hard at the top even after starting well ahead of the eight-ball. They sent in Smaran Ravichandran at No.4, who fell in the fourth over from Nandre Burger. That brought Head and Heinrich Klaasen together – a partnership that still had the potential to push RR till the end. But Head chose to take on Archer in his third over of the Powerplay and perished – swinging and missing a 150.4 kmph delivery that floored the off-stump. SRH dragged their feet to 71/4 in six overs.
The South African hit a jaw-dropping six off the leggie – moving outside the leg-stump and hit a length ball over extra cover for a six. But the very next delivery came with Klaasen’s name on it, as he missed a reverse sweep and was struck in line. The on field umpire didn’t think so but a review secured the wicket for RR, and perhaps the game.
The South African hit a jaw-dropping six off the leggie – moving outside the leg-stump and hit a length ball over extra cover for a six. But the very next delivery came with Klaasen’s name on it, as he missed a reverse sweep and was struck in line. The on field umpire didn’t think so but a review secured the wicket for RR, and perhaps the game.
Pat Cummins then came and went in a jiffy to put RR well on course for a big victory. Shivang Kumar threw his bat around to delay the inevitable. He suffered cramps and limped around for the last couple of overs but SRH eventually ended 47 runs short.
SCORECARD: Rajasthan Royals 243/8 in 20 overs [Vaibhav Sooryavanshi 97 (29), Dhruv Jurel 50 (21); Praful Hinge 3-54] beat Sunrisers Hyderabad 196 in 19.2 overs [Ishan Kishan 33 (11), Nitish Reddy 38 (20), Salil Arora 35 (21); Jofra Archer 3-58, Nandre Burger 2-26] by 47 runs